paronomasia

Paronomasia is a rhetorical device that involves wordplay based on the similarity of sound or meaning between words or phrases. The term derives from the Greek paronomasia, from para- “beside” and onoma “name,” literally indicating a side-by-side naming or a running together of names. In rhetoric and literary analysis, paronomasia is often discussed as a broad category of wordplay, with punning as a prominent subtype.

Common forms include homophonic puns, which rely on words that sound alike but have different meanings, such as “I used to be a baker, but I couldn't make enough dough.” Antanaclasis uses the same word or phrase more than once in a sentence but with different senses, as in “Your argument is sound, but your conclusions are unsound.” Polysemantic wordplay exploits a word’s multiple meanings to create a double reading. Malapropisms—humorous misuses of a word that sound similar to the intended word—are also often discussed under the umbrella of paronomasia.

Paronomasia appears across languages and genres, from classical poetry and drama to modern literature, advertising, and political rhetoric. It can serve humorous, mnemonic, or emphatic purposes, and its effect depends on the audience’s recognition of the double meaning or sound resemblance. In scholarly and critical contexts, paronomasia is valued as a fundamental technique for exploiting ambiguity and the musical qualities of language, even as it overlaps with other figures of speech such as pun, rhetoric, and wordplay.