punning
/ˈpʌnɪŋ/noun, adjective, verb
punning is spelled P-U-N-N-I-N-G: 7 letters. It appears about once in every 10 million words in written English, the 92,628th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, punning means “The action of the verb to pun” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of punning is punnings.
How many letters and syllables are in punning?
| Letters | 7: P-U-N-N-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 10 million words; the 92,628th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is punning?
Punning appears about once in every 10 million words in written English, the 92,628th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce punning?
- /ˈpʌnɪŋ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Persent101-punning.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of punning
- punnings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does punning mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The action of the verb to pun.
adjective
- 1
That makes or uses a pun.
The spoonerism "Burly Chassis" is a punning reference to Shirley Bassey's voluptuous figure.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of pun
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).