Words & WritingGreek → English
Paronomasia
/ˌpærənəˈmeɪʒə/noun
Wordplay that turns on words alike in sound but different in sense; a pun.
The Greek roots
παρά
pará
beside, alongside
ὀνομάζειν
onomázein
to name
Literally: “naming alongside”
The story of the word
One name set beside another that sounds like it, which is precisely how a pun works. Greek and Roman rhetoric taught paronomasia as a technique to be practised, not a habit to be apologised for, and it runs all through the Hebrew prophets in the original. English handbooks of the 1570s and 1580s imported the term with the rest of the rhetorical furniture.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
antonomasiaonomatopoeiasynonymparallel
In a sentence
Hebrew prophecy leans on paronomasia that no translation can carry.
The headline was pure paronomasia and half the readers missed it.