pun

Meanings

Verb

• To beat; strike with force; to ram; to pound, as in a mortar; reduce to powder, to pulverize.
• To make or tell a pun; to make a play on words.

Noun

• A joke or type of wordplay in which similar definitions or sounds of two words or phrases, or different definitions of the same word, are deliberately confused.
• Alternative of bun: a Korean unit of length equivalent to about 0.3cm.

Origin

• From Middle English ponnen, ponen, punen, from Old English punian, pūnian, from Proto-Germanic *punōną ("to break to pieces, pulverize"). See pound. As a kind of word play, from the notion of "beating" the words into place.
• From the McCune-Reischauer romanization of Korean 분, from Chinese 分