PARONOMAISA

PARONOMAISA

Definition of Paronomasia

Paronomasia is a rhetorical device which can be defined as a phrase intentionally used to exploit the confusion between words having similar sounds but different meanings. It is like a word play and is also known as a pun.

Types of Paronomasia

There are two types of paronomasia that are:

Typographic Paronomasia

Typographic paronomasia is further classified into five categories:

• Homophonic – The use of words that sound the same and have different meanings such as “pourout corruption’s slag from every pore….”
• Homographic – The words that are spelt the same but have different meanings such as “David doesn’t feel well today” and “My uncle is digging a new well….”
• Homonymic – These words include both homographs and homophones.
• Compound – These contain two or more puns in a sentence.
• Recursive – In these, the second part of a pun depends upon the meaning of the first.

Visual Paronomasia

These are actually puns and used in non-phonetic texts. Visual paronomasia includes the “4 Pics 1 Word” word game where players are supposed to look at four pictures and guess the word that they are in common.

Origin of paronomasia

Paronomasia is a borrowing from Latin and can be traced to the Greekparonomázein meaning "to make a slight name-change." It entered English in the late 1500s