A playful change of a word with the intention of causing surprise. It is a frequently used figure of speech in fashionable literature and advertising language. A play on words can come into existence (a) through the change in meaning, and therefore...

Word play is a literary and narrative technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work. Puns, phonetic mixups such as spoonerisms, obscure words and meanings, clever rhetorical excursions, oddly formed...