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# wordplay

«wordplay» in Mova's school dictionary: **a clever or funny use of words, such as puns, rhymes or…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (wordplay; uncountable)

### meaning for a pupil

Wordplay is a clever or funny use of words, such as puns, rhymes or words with two meanings. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

Used in English lessons and jokes: puns, riddles, tongue twisters, spoonerisms, crossword clues; writers like Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll use a lot of wordplay.

### examples

- The joke «Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine» uses wordplay. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/#x1)
- Roald Dahl loved wordplay and invented new words. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/#x2)
- The riddle depended on wordplay. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/#x3)
- Crossword clues often use wordplay. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/#x4)
- Our class wrote poems full of wordplay. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/#x5)
- The comedian's wordplay made everyone groan and laugh. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/#x6)

### note

Uncountable: «a lot of wordplay», not «wordplays». A single example is «a pun» or «a play on words».

### In the corpora

- [Rap uses rhythm, rhyme and wordplay, so it is a kind of poetry.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/45-poetry-rhyme-and-rhythm/14/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «wordplay» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/wordplay/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.