Ocean Puns

Welcome to the Punpedia entry on ocean puns! 🌊 Whether you’re after some puns for your beach party invites, instagram captions, or you just like puns about the sea, I hope this entry serves you well. There’s word play around all sorts of ocean-related concepts including wave puns, seashell puns, sand puns and lots more. This entry has a lot in common with the beach punswater puns and fish puns entries, so check them out if you don’t find what you’re looking for here 🙂

Ocean Puns List

Each item in this list describes a pun, or a set of puns which can be made by applying a rule. If you know of any puns about the ocean that we’re missing, please let us know in the comments at the end of this page! Without further ado, here’s the list of ocean puns:

  • Specific → Pacific: As in “You need to be more pacific.” and “Are you sure you have the pacifications for this?” and “Pacifically, there are two apples and three nectarines”.
  • *ways → *waves: Words than end in “ways” can be made into bad wave puns: alwaves (always), railwaves (railways), sidewaves, pathwaves, lengthwaves, doorwaves.
  • Waive → Wave: As in, “Could you wave this parking ticket?” Note: to waive something is to refrain from enforcing.
  • Sway → S-wave: As in, “S-wave with me,” and “You don’t hold any s-wave here.” Note: to hold sway is to have a position of influence or power.
  • Surf: “Surf the net”
  • Serve → Surf: As in “First come, first surfed” and “If memory surfs” and “Revenge is a dish best surfed cold” and “Surfs you right”
  • Service → Surfice: As in, “A better surfice all round,” and “At your surfice,” and “Normal surfice has been resumed,” and “Out of surfice.”
  • Wave: “Wave goodbye” and “Mexican wave” and “Heat wave” and “Wave the white flag” and “Brain waves
  • Title → Tidal: As in “I like it, but I’m not sure on the tidal” and “Use ‘Ms.’ as her tidal” and “The championship tidal match is tomorrow morning.”
  • Tied → Tide: As in “I’m tide up at the moment, can someone else help?” and “Yep, they tide the knot!”
  • Passivist → Pascificist: As in “I’m a pascificst. Violence is never the answer.”
  • Atlantic: There is a well-known newspaper called “The Atlantic”, which might be used to make an Atlantic ocean pun somehow.
  • Deep: “Deep and meaningful” and “Deep, dark secret” and “Go off the deep end” and “In deep water” and “Skin deep” and “Thrown into the deep end”
  • Total → Turtle: As in “A turtle stranger”
  • Tidy → Tidey: As in “After the party we need to tidey the beach.”
  • Send → Sand: As in “It sands shivers down my spine!” and “Sand him over here.”
  • San* → Sand*: Replacing “san” with “sand” when it is at the start of a word give some nice corny puns: sanditary (sanitary), sandctioned (sanctioned), sandctuary (sanctuary), sandguine (sanguine), sandctions (sanctions).
  • Stand → Sand: As in, “Don’t sand so close to me,” and “Do you undersand?” and “Don’t just sand there!” and “I saw her sanding there,” and “My hair was sanding on end,” and “If you can’t sand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and “It sands to reason,” and “A one night sand,” and “Sand on your own two feet,” and “Sand out from the crowd,” and “Sand up and be counted,” and “Sand up for yourself,” and “A sand up guy,” and “Do I sand a chance?” and “I sand corrected,” and “I’m sanding in for…” and “I can’t sand the sight of,” and “I could do it sanding on my head,” and “United we sand.”
  • Not → Naut: As in “I’m naut going to keep arguing with you”.
  • Naughty → Nauty: As in “There’s that nauty sailor again”.
  • Gullible → Seagullible: As in “Kyani is so seagullible!”
  • Crazy → Cray-sea: As in “He is so craysea!” and “Enough of this crayseaness!”. Hyphen is, of course, optional.
  • Wish → Fish: As in “I just fish we had more time!” and “If you rub the lamp you get three fishes“.
  • About/Abode → Aboat: As in “What aboat the captain?” and “Welcome to my aboat!”
  • Sooner → Schooner: As in “Schooner or later.” and “I’ll call her schoon“. A “schooner” is a sailing ship with two or more masts.  See the boat puns entry for more.
  • Sel* → Sail*: If a word starts with “sel” a boat pun can often be made by replacing it with “sail”: sailection (selection), sailect (select), sailf (self), sailling (selling), sail (sell), saildom (seldom), sailfish (selfish), sailfless (selfless), sailective (selective).
  • Bae → Bay: As in “Bay! Please stop with the ocean puns, you’re embarrassing me.”
  • Bitch → Beach: As in “Those beaches don’t know me!” and “He says you were being a bit beachy“.
  • Combine → Combrine: As in “With our power combrined we should be able to defeat them.” and “It’s what you get when you combrine salt and water”. Similar puns can be made for most words ending in “bine”: turbrine (turbine), concubrine (concubine), columbrine (columbine).
  • Sure → Shore: As in “Are you shore?” and “She shore is strong!” and “I shore will.”
  • Whatever → Waterever: As in “Waterever, I don’t care.” and “Do waterever you want”.
  • What her → Water: As in “I know water problem is.” and “Do you know water mother thinks about this?”.
  • What do → Water: As in “Water you think about this?”
  • What about → Water boat: As in “Water boat we have tofu curry for dinner tonight?” and “Water boat Ching? Does she want to come to the beach too?”
  • What are → Water: “Water you doing out so late tonight?” and “Water you doing tomorrow?”
  • What are we → Watery: As in “Watery going to do?” and “Watery doing today, friends?”
  • Salt: “Take it with a pinch/grain of salt” and “Rub salt in the wound” and “Worth one’s salt
  • Salty: “You’re just salty because I beat you at chess earlier.”
  • Boy → Buoy: As in “It’s a buoy!” and “His buoyfriend is a nice person”.
  • See → Sea: As in, “As far as the eye can sea” and “Can’t sea beyond the end of your nose” and “Can’t sea the wood for the trees” and “Come and sea me sometime.”
  • She → Sea: As in, “Ain’t sea sweet?” and “Sea doesn’t belong to anyone.”
  • Say → Sea: “As the sea-ing goes” and “Computer seas no” and “Have the final sea” and “I’m hearing what you sea.”
  • Sea*: Most words starting with “sea” are easy sea puns: season, seasonal, seated, searingly, sealants, seamseatbelt.
  • See* → Sea*: If a word starts with “see” it can often be replaced with “sea” to create a simple sea pun: seaminly, seads, seaker, seathe, seap, seak, sean, sea (see).
  • Sealant / Sealing / Seal: Easy seal puns can be made with words starting with “seal” (e.g. sealant, seal) or “ceil” (e.g. sealing).
  • Se* → Sea*: Some words that start with just “se” also have a “sea”-ish sound, and the ones that don’t can usually be made into terrible puns anyway: seacret, searious, seargeant, seacretion, seacure, seacurity, seacondary, seacretariat, seaconds, seacrete, searum, searenity, searvitude, seanile, seadation, seaclusion, seacretive, seaze, seaquential, sealection, seacretly, seaquences, seanior, seaniority, seagregate, seaping, seacession, seariousness, seaminars, seaveral, seaxual, seaparation, seantimental, seansational, seaquential, seacluded, seacularist, seathing, seaquin, seasame, seaclusion.
  • Se*cy/Ce*cy → Sea*sea: Most words that start with “se” or “ce” and end with “cy” can be double sea puns: seacresea (secrecy), sealibasea (celibacy).
  • *cy → *sea: If a word ends in “cy” it’s an easy “sea” pun: polisea, agensea, democrasea, currensea, emergensea, efficiensea, tendensea, frequensea, fansea, constituensea, pregnansea, accurasea, redundansea, bureaucrasea, presidensea, legasea, conspirasea, mersea, privasea, bankruptsea, consistensea, literasea, urgensea, deficiensea, dependency, consultansea, tenacity, isea (icy), secrecy, intimasea.
  • Seizure → Seazure: As in “If I read one more ocean pun I’m going to have a seazure.”
  • Confiscate → Conch-fish-scate: As in “I’m going to have to conchfishcate your pun licence for that one.”
  • *fici* → *fishi*: If a word contains “fici” it can often be replaced with “fishi”. Here are some examples: affishionado, artifishial, benefishial, coeffishient, defishiency, defishit, ineffishient, suffishient, ofishial, profishient, superfishial.
  • Issue → Fishue: As in “That’s not the fishue here though.” and “I was fishued a sign for parking without a ticket”.
  • Net: “net” has two senses: “net weight” and “net income” is one sense, and “fish net” is the other sense.
  • Bereft → Bereeft: “bereft of” means “deprived of” of “lacking”. So an example sentence might be: “The old, stark beach house of bereefed of colour”.
  • Enemy → Anemone: As in “They’re my worst anemones” and “Let’s not make anemones of each other!”.
  • Simmer → Swimmer: As in “I left the pot swimmering and now my vegetable curry is burnt!” and “Hey swimmer down, there’s no need to turn this into a fight”.
  • *sip* → *ship*: If a word contains “sip” it can usually be replaced with “ship”. For example: gosship (gossip), dishipate (dissipate), shipping (sipping), inshipid (insipid). See the boat puns entry for more.
  • *sib* → *ship*: If a word contains “sib” it can usually be replaced with “ship” to create a terrible pun. For example: posshiply (possibly), accesshipility (accessibility), incomprehenshiple, feashipble, irresponshipble, invishipble, ostenshipbly, revershipble, vishipble. An example sentence might be: “I am responshiple for my puns.”  See the boat puns entry for more.
  • Kill → Keel: As in “We can be healthy with plants, keeling animals is not necessary.”
  • Seal: “I sealed the deal” and “Seal of approval” and “Seal your fate”
  • Island: As in, “No man is an island,” and “Treasure island,” and “A tropical island.”
  • I land → Island: As in “Islanded a job at that new tech company.”
  • Aligned → Island: As in and “Our incentives are well-island.”
  • Choppy: This term is an adjective that describes something that has many abrupt transitions – e.g. “Choppy prose”, but it is also commonly used to describe the ocean when it has many small waves.
  • Coast: “The coast is clear” and “I’m just coasting
  • Pawn/Pwn → Prawn: This pun can be used in the gamer-culture sense: “I got prawned by a pro last night”, in the chess sense “He moved his prawn to C4″, and in the pawnbroker sense: “I had to prawn all my stuff to pay for college.”
  • Kid* → Squid*: The prefix “kid” can be replaced with “squid” as follows: squidding (kidding), squidnapped (kidnapped), squidney (kidney), squid (kid).
  • ?id* → Squid*: If a word begins with “?id” where ‘?’ represents any letter, then this prefix can sometimes be replaced with “squid”. For example: squiddle (middle), squidlife crisis (midlife crisis), squidget (midget), squiddle (riddle), squidiculous (ridiculous), squideotape (videotape), squiddish (yiddish), squidth (width), squidow (widow), squidget (widget).
  • Well/Welcome → Whale/Whalecome: As in “Whalecome to our home!” and “Whale, whale, whale, what do we have here?”.  Whale puns can be made with many more words like welfare (whalefare), welsh (whalesh) and wellness (whaleness). Check out the entry on whale puns for more.
  • Wail → Whale: As in “Poor thing, he’s been whaling over his grandmother who recently passed.” and “A good whale can help one overcome grief”.
  • While → Whale: As in “Whale we agreed on most points, we did have some disagreements.” and “All the whale …” and “Whistle whale you work”.
  • Help → Kelp: As in “Can you please kelp me build a sand castle?” and “Katie, kelp your brother lift that please”.
  • Purpose → Porpoise: As in “I didn’t do it on porpoise!” and “Clarity of porpoise” and “What is the porpoise of this?” See the dolphin puns entry for more.
  • What is → Waters: As in “Waters going on here?” and “Waters the porpoise of this?”
  • Defin* → Dolphin: As in “We dolphinitely need more time to finish the mission.” and “What is the dolphinition of this word?” and “Please dolphine this word.” and “It’s the dolphinitive source of Nordic history.” See the dolphin puns entry for more.
  • Endorphines → Endolphins: As in “I love that rush of endolphins you get after a good hard swimming session.”
  • Humanity → Humanatee: As in “If only we could have some humanatee in our treatment of sea animals” and “Have some humanatee“. Note that terrible puns can also be made of insanity (insmanatee) and profanity (profmanatee).
  • In* → Fin*: A lovely and shameful pun can be made from any word starting with “in”. Simply replace “in” with “fin”: finformation, finfluence, finvolve, finternational, finvolved, fintroduce, findeed, finvestment, finto, finclude, finteresting, fintellectual, finjury, fintend, finterview, finsurance, finstrument, … Thousand more can be made with the help of a list like this. You can also check out the entry on dolphin puns for more puns of this nature.
  • Imp* → Shrimp*: If a word starts with “imp”, you can usually replace it with “shrimp”, for example: shrimportant (important), shrimpossible (impossible), shrimply (imply), shrimpose (you get the idea), shrimpose, shrimportshrimpudent, shrimpact, shrimperfect, shrimpaled, shrimpartial, shrimpart. Shrimp puns probably deserve their own entry, but until then you can use this list to help you.
  • Symb* → Shrimpb*: Replacing the suffix “symb” with “shrimpb” gives some pleasantly jarring shrimp pins: shrimpbolic (symbolic), shrimpbolises (symbolises), shrimpbiosis (symbiosis).
  • Should* → Shoald*: A “shoal” can refer to a large group of fish, or an area of shallow water, or an underwater sand bank. We can use “shoal” be used to make puns like: shoald (should), shoalder (shoulder), shoaldering.
  • Show l* → Shoal: This is a subtle one because it involves a word break. Whenever you use the word “show”, and the following word starts with an “L”, then you can replace “show” with “shoal” (a shoal is a large school of fish). For example: “That’s cool! You should shoal Liam.” and “She laughs when we shoal little blue flowers to her.”.
  • *tual* → *shoal*: As mentioned above, A “shoal” can refer to a large group of fish, or an area of shallow water, or an underwater sand bank. If a word contains “tual” it can often be replaced with “shoal” for a cute little pun: actshoal (actual), actshoality (actuality), intellectshoal (intellectual), ritshoal (ritual), spiritshoal, mutshoally, eventshoal, eventshoally, conceptshoal, conceptshoalise, virtshoal, contractshoal, factshoal, factshoally, perpetshoal, textshoal, contextshoal, perceptshoal, punctshoal, instinctshoal, actshoally, habitshoally.
  • *sole → *shoal: As in “The shoal of my shoe is worn down.” and “Your new gaming conshoal is cool.” and “Yeah, he’s a bit of an asshoal.”
  • More → Moray: As in “Mum, we need moray sunscreen!”.
  • Mor* → Moor*: Words that begin with the “more” sound can be turned into a pun on the boat-related word, moor (meaning “to tie a boat to the shore or an anchor”): moore, moorning, moortgage, mooral, moortality, moorale, moortar, moorphine, moorgue, moorphologically.
  • *pear → *pier: As in “Then all of a sudden she dissapiered!” and “After appiering to check his watch, he quickly ran away.” and “That is a sharp spier you’ve got there”.
  • Brilliant → Krilliant: As in “Isn’t the weather just krilliant today?” Krill are small shrimp-like plankton.
  • Brilliant → Brill-iant: “Brill” are a type of European flatfish.
  • Angrily→ Ankrilly: As in “The monster roared ankrilly“.
  • Hungrily→ Hunkrilly: As in “She hunkrilly ate the sweet potato slices”.
  • Serf → Surf: A serf was a sort of slave in medieval times who worked for a feudal lord. It’s sometimes used as an insult.
  • *cial → *shell: When a word has “cial” as a suffix, this suffix can usually be swapped out for “shell” to create a shell pun: soshell (social), speshell (special), offishell (official), finanshell, commershell, crushell, judishell, artifishell, provinshell, rashell, benefishell, superfishell, fashell, glashell, sacrifishel, antisoshell.
  • Shall→ Shell: As in “Shell I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and “He who lives by the sword shell die by the sword.”
  • Selfish → Shellfish: As in “Stop being so shellfish.” See the next item for a generalisation of this pun.
  • Sel* → Shell*: If a word starts with “sel” a shell pun can be made by switching it with “shell”. For example: shellection (selection), shellect (select), shelldom (seldom), shellfless (selfless).
  • Harbour: As in, “Harbour a grudge,” and “Safe harbour.” 
  • Pier: As in, “Take a long walk off a short pier.” 
  • Peer → Pier: As in, “Pier pressure,” and “Pier-ing through the curtains.”

Ocean-Related Words

Here’s a list of ocean-related concepts to help you come up with your own ocean puns:

wave, surf, beach, water, sea, Arctic, Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, Antarctic, deep, shallow, deep blue, deep sea, ship, dolphin, shark, turtle, whale, fish, starfish, crab, seal, penguin, island, choppy, swell, hydrosphere, mariana trench, coastal, coast, coral, shore, seawater, saltwater, salty, salt, underwater, bay, archipelago, pelagic zone, sea bed, oceanic, marine, kelp, seaward, waters, cape, planktonic, shorline, seashore, lobster, reef, benthic, demersal, aphotic, photic, epipelagic, mesopelagic, liquid, seashell, oceanview, continental shelf, sail, sailing, boat, depths, littoral, bermuda, submerged, driftwood, seaspray, swim, estuary, floating, high seas, tide, sea gull, gull, penguin, shrimp, harbour, high tide, manta ray, transatlantic, oceanic, brine, oceanography, transpacific, canal, seascape, nemo, dory, albatross, barnacle, offshore

Did this Punpedia entry help you?

Did you find the ocean-related pun that you were looking for? If so, great! Otherwise, please let us know what you were looking for in the comments, below! Are you looking for word play for text messages, facebook, twitter, or some other social media platform? Would you like to see some funny ocean pun images? Or perhaps you just want more ocean puns for your photo captions? Whatever the case, please let us know, and help us improve this Punpedia entry. If you’re got any ocean puns (image or text) that aren’t included in this article, please submit them in the comments and one of our curators will add it as soon as possible. Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂

Otter Puns

This entry is all about otter puns! Otter is the common name of a family of semi-aquatic carnivorous mammals that are closely related to weasels. Otters are sometimes confused with beavers, which are a completely different animal. Beavers build dams, are herbivores, and are relatives of rats. The two most well-known otter puns (thanks to their meme-fame) are on the words “utter” and “other” as in: “Otterly deplorable!” and “My significant otter” but there are lots more to be made!

As you’ll see, otter puns mostly play on words that contain anything sounding vaguely like “otter”, but there are some more sneaky puns to be made based on well known characteristics of otters and their behaviour.

You might also like to check out the Punpedia entries on on turtle punsfrog punsfish punsshark puns, beach puns and squid puns for some more water-based word play.

As with all entries on Punpedia, if you’ve got a great otter pun, you can post it in the comments and one of our curators will add it to this entry.

Otter Puns List

Each item in this list of otter puns is either a simple word-swap (e.g. other → otter) or it may be a general rule from which multiple puns can be made. In the case of general rules, the asterisks sign (*) represents one or more letters.

  • Other → Otter: “You should have see the otter guy!”
  • Others → Otters: “Hey, hold up! Wait for the otters!”
  • Otherwise → Otterwise: “We need to leave now, otterwise we’ll be late!”
  • Otherworldy → Otterworldly: “There’s some otterworldly feeling about this place.”
  • Utter → Otter: “You’re otterly deplorable!” and “That’s otter nonsense!” and “Stop ottering things under your breath.”
  • Utterance → Otterance: “There was a gasp at this public otterance of the forbidden word.”
  • Attorney → Otterney: “My otterney advised me to plead guilty.”
  • Outer → Otter: “I hope one day we can explore otter space.”
  • Out of→ Otter: “This is boring, I’m otter here.” and “It’s like a scene otter a horror film!”
  • Eternal → Otternal: “Otternal life may be possible at some point in the future.”
  • Outermost → Ottermost: “The ottermost layer is the hardest.”
  • Iterate → Otterate: “We need to otterate through this array of integers.”
  • Attraction → Otteraction: “There is otteraction between the magnets because of their magnetic fields.”
  • Attractive → Otteractive: “Religion isn’t otteractive to the younger generations.”
  • Attribute → Otteribute: “Climate change has been conclusively otteributed to human actions.”
  • Atmosphere → Otter-mosphere: “The otter-mosphere is composed mostly of oxygen and nitrogen.” and “This cafe has an unusual otter-mosphere.”
  • Atrocity → Otterocity: “The otterocities committed during WW2 are deeply saddening.”
  • Atrocious → Otterocious: “Only the most otterocious otter puns have made it into this list.”
  • Ought-ta → Otter: “Ten minutes otter be enough time.” and “We otter stop and help him.”
  • Weasel: Otters are “mustelids” which is often referred to as the “weasel” family. A “weasel” can also refer to a deceitful or treacherous person.
  • Hold →  Holt: The den of an otter is called a “holt“. Examples: “Can you please holt off on the otter puns?” and “I holt her in high regard.”
  • Halt → Holt: The den of an otter is called a “holt“. Examples: “Holt! Who goes there?” and “Production was brought to a holt.”
  • Sprained → Spraint: Spraint is the dung of an otter. Examples: “I tripped and spraint my ankle.”
  • Mum will / Mum’ll → Mammal: “I’m working late, so mammal pick you up tonight.”
  • Selfish → Shellfish: The diet of sea otters consists mostly of shell fish: “Share some with me – stop being so shellfish.”
  • Anvil: Otters are known for their anvil-like use of tools to crack shellfish while floating on their back.
  • The other → Sea otter: “But sea otter guy punched first!”
  • Automatically → Ottermatically: “We ottermaticaly became friends.”
  • Autobiography → Otterbiography: “She finished the otterbiography just before she passed.”
  • Automation → Ottermation: “The ottermation of many repetitive jobs has already happened.”
  • Autopilot → Otterpilot: “I’ve switched the plane to otterpilot mode.”
  • Autopsy → Otterpsy: “The otterpsy suggests it was a tumor.”
  • Autocracy → Ottercracy: “We’re living in an ottercracy. These damn otters!”
  • Autograph → Ottergraph: “Hello, can I please get your ottergraph?”
  • Auto → Otter: “Grand theft otter.”
  • Outdoor → Otter: “I really like my new otter furniture set.” (This only works in a very slurred accent.)
  • Odder → Otter: “Scientology is odd, but not much otter than most other religions.”
  • Adore → Otter: “I absolutely otter you, my dear.”
  • Adorable → Otterable: “Aww, this otter meme is so otterable!”  (A tenuous one)

As you can see our otter puns list is still short! If you’d like to help us out, this source of otter-related words may be handy (as might this source). If you come up with any more otter puns, please share them in the comments!

Otter Pun Images

There’s no shortage of otter memes and visual puns on there internet, but they’re a bit scattered. We’ve collected some of the best to present you here. If you find or make better ones, please share a link in the comments!

If you’re after more aquatic-ish animal word play, check out our entries on turtle punsfrog puns and crab puns. And we’ve got a more general water puns entry too!

Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂

Turtle Puns

This entry is all about turtle puns! There are also a sprinkle of tortoise puns too, so be careful if you’re looking for specifically turtle-based puns (tortoise are completely land-based, turtles mostly live in or around water). As you’ll see, there are a lot of “shell”-based puns to be made, and also a few puns using the names of different turtle species/families.

You might also like to check out the Punpedia entries on on otter punsfrog punsfish punsshark puns, beach puns and squid puns for some more water-based word play.

As with all entries on Punpedia, if you’ve got a great turtle pun, you can post it in the comments and one of our curators will add it to this entry.

Turtle Puns List

Each item in this list of turtle puns is either a simple word-swap (e.g. total → turtle) or it may be a general rule from which multiple puns can be made. In the case of general rules, the asterisks sign (*) represents one or more letters.

  • Total→ Turtle: “I am in turtle awe of her skills.”
  • Totally→ Turtley: “Turtley!” and “This is turtley amazing!”
  • Totalitarian→ Turtleitarian: “It’s a cruel turtle-itarian regime.”
  • Celebration→ Shellebration: As in “After finishing we should have a shellebration.”
  • Startle → Sturtle: “Oh! You sturtled me!” and “That was sturtling news.”
  • Turtle-neck: A “turtle-neck” is a high, close-fitting neck on a shirt. Can be used as a turtle pun with the right context.
  • Sel* → Shell*: If a word starts with “sel” a shell pun can be made by switching it with “shell”. For example: shellection (selection), shellect (select), shelldom (seldom), shellfless (selfless), shellfish (selfish).
  • *sel → *shell: Words ending in “sel” can often be punned upon with “shell”: vesshell (vessel), tasshell (tassel), weashell (weasel), musshell (mussel), etc.
  • *sel* → *shell*: Words containing “sel” can yeild nice puns on “shell”: Hershellf, himshellf, themshellves, itshellf, myshellf, yourshelf, yourshelves, convershelly, counshelling, preshellected, overshelling, undershelling, ushellessely, weashelling.
  • Shall→ Shell: As in “Shell I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and “He who lives by the sword shell die by the sword.”
  • *cial → *shell: When a word has “cial” as a suffix, this suffix can usually be swapped out for “shell” to create a shell pun: soshell (social), speshell (special), offishell (official), finanshell, commershell, crushell, judishell, artifishell, provinshell, rashell, benefishell, superfishell, fashell, glashell, sacrifishel, antisoshell.
  • Sell → Shell: “How many do we have left to shell?”
  • Hell → Shell: “The party last night was a shell of a time.”
  • Flip her → Flipper: As in “Don’t you dare flip her off! That’s rude!” and “We’re going to need to flip her on her belly before the surgery.”
  • Flip out → Flipper-t: “Woah! No need to flipper-t about my bad turtle puns.”
  • Taught us → Tortoise: “Our parents tortoise to be kind to animals.”
  • Tore this → Tortoise: “Turtle puns tortoise family apart.”
  • Bleak → Beak: Many turtles have beak-like mouths – “The outlook is beak.”
  • Riddle → Ridley: Refers to a type of small turtle that lives in tropical seas – “Ridley me this!” and “She speaks in ridleys.”
  • A → Loggerhead: Refers to a species of large marine turtle. Also used as an insult for someone who speaks or behaves unintelligently: “That news anchor is a bit of a loggerhead.”
  • Snapping: A “snapping turtle” is a type of turtle known for its aggression and powerful jaw. The term “snapping” is also used for quick and irritable speech: “The teacher was intermittently snapping at her.”
  • Snap in → Snapping: Refers to a type of turtle. “To snap in quarters.”
  • Napping → Snapping: “Did I wake you up? Na, I was jus’ snapping.”
  • A → Leatherback: Refers to a very large black turtle with a thick leathery shell.
  • Stinkpot: Refers to a species of turtle which can defensively produce a foul smell. Can also refer to a contemptible or foul smelling person or thing: “Jason, you stinkpot! Stop making turtle puns.”
  • Plaster on → Plastron: Refers to the underside part of a turtle’s (or tortoise’s, or snake’s) shell: “You may need to put some plastron after I beat you in this pun battle.”
  • S’cute → Scute: A “scute” refers to large bony or horny plate as on an armadillo or turtle: “Aww, scute how he walks all wobbly like that.”
  • Slow: Although many turtles are quite fast (The pacific leatherback turtle can swim as fast as 34 km/h), the “turtles are slow” stereotype may allow you to use the word “slow” as a turtle pun in the right context.
  • Mutant: The series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may be well-known enough for the word “mutant” to constitute a turtle pun in the right context.
  • Mossback: A “mossback” can refer to a very old turtle that, because of its age, has grown moss on its back. It can also refer to a very conservative person; one with old-fashioned views.
  • Hair → Hare: Because of the fame of the Tortoise and the Hare story, one might be able to make a subtle turtle/tortoise pun (with the right context) by switching “hair” for “hare“.

As you can see our turtle puns list is still short! Below is a list of turtle-related words that we still need puns for. If you’d like to help us out, please post suggestions in the comments! Also, this source of turtle-related words may be handy (as might this source).

  • ? → Hawksbill: Refers to a small, endangered tropical sea turtle.
  • ? → Reptile: All turtles and tortoises are reptiles.
  • ? → Carapace: Refers to the hard upper shell of a turtle, crustacean, or arachnid.
  • ? → Raphael: A fictional turtle from TMNT.
  • ? → Michaelangelo: A fictional turtle from TMNT.
  • ? → Donatello: A fictional turtle from TMNT.
  • ? → Leonardo: A fictional turtle from TMNT.
  • ? → Genbu: Refers to a mythical turtle in Japanese Mythology.
  • ? → Kurma: Means “turtle” in Sanskrit and refers to the Hindu Turtle God.
  • ? → Great A’Tuin: Refers to the “World Turtle” that helps carry the world in the Discworld series of novels by Terry Pratchet.
  • ? → Mock turtle: Refers to a fictional turtle in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll (wiki).
  • ? → Galapagos: Galapagos tortoises are a species of giant tortoise found on the Galapagos islands.
  • ? → Anapsid: Refers to “a primitive reptile having no opening in the temporal region of the skull; all extinct except turtles”
  • ? → Sea turtle
  • ? → Tortoiseshell

If you’re after more aquatic-ish animal word play, check out our entries on otter punsfrog puns and crab puns. And we’ve got a more general water puns entry too!

Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂