Paronomasia

Paronomasia is a literary device, a deliberate "play on words", also called a "pun", for the purpose of commentary, exploiting sound similarity or meanings as a serious social or political critique or as a form of ridicule, for effect.

Possible examples:

"The numerous ill-conceived current policies of Democrats provide a liberal display of stupidity on Capitol Hill."

"The max-Senate debates in Washington are dead-locked. This is no comedy." (Mack Sennett)

"The need for more military intelligence is shockingly evident in the current international situation."

"The idea of spending money to put a colony on Mars is genuine science friction, given the needs of our veterans, our children, our bridges, roads, highways and the state of govern-mental spending as a hole." (whole)

Paronomasia in the Bible

The Bible frequently uses paronomasia: for example

See also

Slander
Libel
Polemic
Humor
Historical-critical method (Higher criticism)

External links

Paronomasia - Definition and examples (literarydevices.net)

Paronomasia (word play) (thoughtco.com)

Pun - from Infogalactic the Knowledge Core (infogalactic.com)

Examples of Puns in Literature (yourdictionary.com)

Shakespearean Puns - Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus (vocabulary.com)

Paronomasia or a play on words - Rules of Interpretation (biblicalresearch.info)