Boat Puns

This Punpedia entry is about boat puns! Whether you’re looking for a boat name, halfway through a pun battle, or just training your nautical wordplay muscles, we hope you find this entry useful! As usual, if you’re looking for visual puns (images, memes, etc.), scroll down to the bottom of this entry.

The boating and nautical area of  word play has a strong history, perhaps mostly because of the tradition of naming a boat or ship with a pun. On top of this, there are so many sub-categories of boat word play: sailing puns, anchor puns, rowing puns, naval puns, ship puns, fishing puns, and it even has a decent overlap with the infamous ocean puns category – one of the more popular categories of puns. So in this Punpedia entry we’ve done our best to create and collect as many examples of maritime word play as we could. If you’ve got a nautical pun that we’re missing, please submit it in the comments at the bottom of this page!

Also check out these related articles: fish puns, beach puns, whale puns, dolphin puns and shark puns.

Boat 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 boat related puns that we’re missing, please let us know in the comments at the end of this page! Without further ado, here is a big list of boat puns:

  • Encourage → Anchorage: As in “Stop anchoraging him!”.
  • Not → Knot: As in “Tell me this is knot happening.” and “Knot on my watch.”
  • Not → Naut: As in “Last but naut least” and “Fear naut!”
  • Boat → But: As in “Last boat not least” and “Close, boat no cigar.”
  • Saboteur → Saboateur : As in “Captain, I believe there’s a saboateur on our ship.”
  • Boat: As in, “Don’t rock the boat,” and “In the same boat,” and “Missed the boat,” and “Whatever floats your boat,” and “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Notes: to rock the boat is to say something that will upset the people around you. If you need a bigger boat, then you’ve underestimated the situation you’re in. 
  • Butt → Boat: As in, “Kick boat,” and “Kiss my boat,” and “Pain in the boat,” and “My boat is on the line,” and “Boat-terflies in my stomach.” 
  • Bowtie → Boat-tie: As in, “My boat-tie is too tight.” 
  • Beaut* → Boat*: As in, “Boat-iful people,” and “Boat-y mark,” and “I need my boat-y sleep,” and “Make boat-iful music together,” and “Boat-y is in the eye of the beholder,” and “Boat-y is only skin-deep.”
  • Reckon → Wrecken: As in “Do you wrecken we’ll make it through the storm?” and “I am a force to be wreckened with.”
  • Wreck: The word “wreck” has a few meanings other than shipwreck, including slang ones (like “Ohhh rekt!” and “He’s an emotional wreck.”) and the regular, formal ones (Like “My wedding was wrecked by the storm”).
  • Wife → Wharf: As in “My wharf likes our new boat.” and “What does your wharf think?”.
  • Very → Ferry: As in “That was a ferry impressive boat pun.”
  • *very* → *ferry*: If a word contains “very” it can be a boat pun: eferry (every), eferrything (everything), deliferry, discoferry, eferryday, eferrywhere, braferry, slaferry, thieferry.
  • Furry → Ferry: As in, “A ferry toy,” and “My legs are looking a bit ferry.”
  • Fairy → Ferry: As in, “Airy ferry,” and “A ferrytale ending,” and “Nobody loves a ferry when she’s forty.”
  • Vary → Ferry: As in, “Results may ferry,” and “Your mileage may ferry.” Note: Your mileage may vary is an expression indicating that something that works for one may not work for another. Is commonly shortened to YMMV. 
  • *fer → *ferry: As in, deferry (defer), conferry (confer), inferry (infer), referry (refer), offerry (offer), transferry (transfer), bufferry (buffer), preferry (prefer). 
  • Nefarious → Neferryous: As in, “A neferryous villain.”
  • Indecency → In decent sea: As in “The flagrant in decent sea of these images!”
  • Carved → Craft: As in “She’s craft out a nice little niche for herself.”
  • Of course → Off course: As in “Off course I like being the navigator!”
  • Wake: The “wake” is the trail of disturbed water left by a boat. Example sentences: “Wake up!” and “I’ve been awake for days.”
  • Shit → Ship: As in “Oh ship, we’re in trouble now.”
  • Boy → Buoy: As in “Oh buoy, I can’t wait.” and “Good morning, buoys and girls.”
  • Most → Mast: As in “This is mast amusing!” and “Mast boats have a sail.”
  • Must → Mast: As in “We mast sail towards that island!” and “We mastn’t get too confident”.
  • Mas* → Mast*: Sometimes a word that begins with “mas” can be made into a boat pun by a replacement of “mas” with “mast”: mastacre (massacre), mastculinity, mastonry, mastochistic, mastquerading, mastage (massage). Obviously we can also make puns when a word starts with “mast”: master, masterpiece, masterminding.
  • Grief → Greef: As in “Good greef!” and “He was overtaken by greef.”.
  • Naughty → Knotty: As in “He’s a very knotty boy!” and “Knotty or nice?”.
  • Scenic → Seanic: As in “Let’s take the seanic route.”
  • Sooner → Schooner: As in “Schooner or later.” and “I’ll call her schoon“. A “schooner” is a sailing ship with two or more masts.
  • Doc*→ Dock*: If a word begins with “doc”, it can often be switched with “dock”: docktor, dockument, dockumentation, docktrine, docktorate, dockumentary.
  • Clue → Crew: As in “I havn’t got a crew.”
  • 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).
  • Aphrodisiac → Aquadisiac: As in “I heard that water is actually an aquadisiac.”
  • Alchoholic → Aquaholic: As in “I’ve been an aquaholic for 5 years now.”
  • Sure → Shore: As in “Are you shore?” and “She shore is strong!”.
  • Barge: As in “You can’t just barge in here like that!”
  • How → Scow: A “scow” is a type of flat-bottomed sailing boat. As in “Scow could you do this to me?!”
  • Are c* → Ark: If a word starting with “c” follows the word “are”, then a play on “ark” can be created. For example: “Many ark called but few are chosen” and “Most people aren’t happy unless they ark complaining.”
  • *tag* → *tug*: If a word contains “tag” we can sometimes switch it with “tug” (short for tugboat): antugonistic (antagonistic), pentugon, stugnate, tugalong (tagalong).
  • Really → Reely: As in “This is a reely good boat pun” and “I’m having a reely good day on my boat!”.
  • Re* →Reel*: Most words starting with “re” can be made into fishing puns: reelationship, reelease, reelate, reelief, reeligion, reelative, reelevant, reelax, reeluctant, reeliable,, reeliability, reelieved, reeliance, reelay, reelapse, reelinquish, reeligation, reelive, reelentlessly.
  • 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?”
  • 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?”
  • *pear → *peir: 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”.
  • Confiscate → Conch-fish-scate: As in “I’m going to have to conchfishcate your pun licence for that one.” See the entry on fish puns for more.
  • Row/Roe: “Row” as in “row your boat” and “roe” as in fish or shellfish eggs, are two words that can be inserted into many other words: roetine/rowtine (routine), rowmans/roemans (romans), rowtation/roetation (rotation), rowd/roed (rowed), rowse (rose), rowl (roll), rowp, rowmantic, rowbust, rowbot, rowgue, roest.
  • *row: If a word ends in “row” it’s an easy rowing pun: grow, throw, narrow, tomorrow, borrow, arrow, eyebrow, sorrow, overthrow, barrow, burrow, crow, harrow, marrow, sparrow, furrow, wheelbarrow, scarecrow, farrow, outgrow. Variations of these like growing, borrowing, sorrowful, etc. also work.
  • Kill → Keel: As in “We can be healthy with plants, keeling animals is not necessary.”
  • Skull → Scull: As in “If you could get it into your thick scull!” A scull is a small oar.
  • Flag: As in “We should flag that comment as inappropriate.”
  • Punned → Punt: A “punt” is a type of long, narrow, flat-bottomed boat, so this is a lovely self-referential boat pun about punning: “I’ve punt about boats for long enough.”
  • *kily → *keely: Words containing “kil” can often be turned into boat puns: luckeely, huskeely, shakeely, silkeely, cheekeely, jerkeely, sneakeely, spookeely, freakeely.
  • Kil* → Keel*: Words starting with “kil” can be made into boat puns: keelogram, keelolitres, keeln (kiln), keeling, keeler, keelt (kilt), keeljoy.
  • Something → Somefin: As in “There’s somefin about the way he walks” and “Is that a shark, or somefin else?”.
  • Nothing → Nofin: As in “Nofin is better than swimming with dolphins” and “I’ve got nofin left to give!”.
  • Debate → Debait: As in “I don’t want to debait you.” and “Well, that’s debaitable“.
  • Summon → Salmon: As in “He salmoned a spirit from the underworld.” and “Please salmon the duke, I have an urgent message!”.
  • Someone → Salmon: As in “Will salmon please help me?” and “Salmon’s at the door”.
  • Crea* → Cray*: Many words that begin with “crea” can be used to make shoddy crayfish puns. For example: crayture (creature), craytive (creative), crayte (create).
  • Crayon: The word “crayon” includes “cray” – the short version of “crayfish”, and so can be used as a pun.
  • Slope → sloop: A “sloop” is a type of sailboat with one mast. Example sentence: “Hold on! This is a steep sloop.”
  • *sk if → As skiff: If the word “if” follows a word that ends in “sk” then we can create a play on “skiff” (a type of shallow, flat-bottomed boat). Example sentences: “Before giving it to her, askiff she wants it.” and “We’ll be back by duskiff we can fix this motor.” Many more words fit this pattern: riskiff (risk if), deskiff (desk if), taskiff (task if), diskiff, maskiff, briskiff, flaskiff, kioskiff, baskiff, whiskif, muskiff.
  • *s if → As skiff: If the word “if” follows a word that ends in “s” then we can create a play on “skiff” (a type of shallow, flat-bottomed boat). Example sentences: “As skiff!” and “You sound as skiff you’re a bit sick?” and “Ask us skiff you need anything!” There are obviously thousands of words ending in “s” so you can create your own puns using this formula with the help of a list like this.
  • Y’all → Yawl: As in “How are yawl doing today?” A yawl is a type of sailboat.
  • *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.”
  • Like → lake: As in “Swim lake a fish.” and “Lake a fish out of water.”
  • *sip* → *ship*: If a word contains “sip” it can usually be replaced with “ship”. For example: gosship (gossip), dishipate (dissipate), shipping (sipping), inshipid (insipid).
  • Purpose → Porpoise: As in “I didn’t do it on porpoise!” and “She porpoisely ran the ship aground.”
  • Trolling → Trawling: As in “Haha, naa I’m just trawling.” and “Not sure if he’s an internet trawl.” Trawling is a method of fishing.
  • 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). Note: sanguine has two meanings: being optimistic or positive in the face of a difficult situation, and a reddish-brown colour.
  • Bereft → Bereeft: “bereft of” means “deprived of” of “lacking”. So an example sentence might be: “The old, stark beach house of bereefed of colour”.
  • Or → Oar: As in “Let’s go oar we’ll be late!” and “Should we swim oar keep sunbaking?”.
  • Or* → Oar*: If a word starts with “or” it can be replaced with “oar” for a neat little boat pun. Some examples: oarganisation, oariginally, oarange, oarchestra, oargan, oarbit, oarnament, oarthodoxy, oariental, oarnaments, oarchid, oardering.
  • Awe → Oar: As in “It was truly oar-inspiring.”
  • Aw* → Oar*: If a word starts with “aw” it can sometimes be made into an oar pun: oarsome (awesome), oar-wareness (awareness), oarful (aweful), oar-waited (awaited), oarkward (awkward), oar-ware (aware), oar-wakened (awakened), oary (awry).
  • Sea*: Most words starting with “sea” are easy sea puns: season, seasonal, seated, searingly, sealants, seam, seatbelt.
  • Seizure → Seazure: As in “If I read one more ocean pun I’m going to have a seazure.”
  • 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: 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.
  • *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), secresea, intimasea.
  • 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).
  • 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.”
  • 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.”
  • Endorphines → Endolphins: As in “I love that rush of endolphins you get after a good hard swimming session.”
  • Bae → Bay: As in “Bay! Please stop with the beach puns, you’re embarrassing me.”
  • 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).
  • 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”.
  • Wish → Fish: As in “I just fish we had more time!” and “If you rub the lamp you get three fishes“. See the entry on fish puns for more.
  • Stark → Shark: As in “The shark contrast between his and his boyfriend’s attire was intriguing.” and “The old, shark house stood looming above us”.
  • *ways → *waves: Words than end in “ways” can be made into bad wave puns: alwaves (always), railwaves (railways), sidewaves, pathwaves, lengthwaves, doorwaves.
  • 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.”
  • Acquaintance → Aquaintance: As in “I don’t know her well, she’s just an aquaintance“.
  • Naughty → Nauty: As in “There’s that nauty sailor again”.
  • Tied → Tide: As in “I’m tide up at the moment, can someone else help?” and “Yep, they tide the knot!”
  • Tidy → Tidey: As in “After the party we need to tidey the beach.”
  • 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.
  • Turn → Tern: A “tern” is a sea bird similar to a seagull, but smaller and with a forked tail.
  • About/Abode → Aboat: As in “What aboat the captain?” and “Welcome to my aboat!”
  • Big/Large/Massive → Titanic: Replace adjectives which mean “big” with “titanic“.
  • Fission → Fishin’: As in “Nuclear fishin’ is an exciting new technology.” See the entry on fish puns for more.
  • Birth → Berth: A “berth” is a ship’s allotted place at a dock or wharf. Examples: “Lucky I was using berth control!” and “Nothing but my berthday suit!”
  • Fathom: A “fathom” is a unit of length equal to 6 feet (~1.8m) and is most commonly used in reference to the depth of water. Example sentences: “I can’t fathom what she means.” and “It’s completely unfathomable!”
  • Strip → Ship: As in “A weird ship-tease” and “A thin blue ship of metal” and “I’m shipping you of your privileges.”
  • *anker → *anchor: most words ending in “anker” can be anchor puns: banchor (banker), tanchor (tanker), flanchor (flanker), hanchor (flanker), spanchor (flanker), danchor (danker).
  • Rudder →Utter: As in “I’m rudderly embarrassed!” and “Pure, rudder silence.”
  • Properly → Propellorly: As in “Propellorly lame, if you ask me.” and “Finish the job propellorly.”
  • Dinghy → Dingy: A “dinghy” is a small boat and it sounds a bit like the word “dingy” which has multiple slang definitions including “gloomy and drab”.
  • Admirably → Admiralably: As in “You handled that admiralably, son.”
  • Swell: “Swell” has several meanings: “the rolling movement of waves”, “become larger in size” and “excellent/wonderful/fashionable” to name a few. Example sentences: “Dude, that was swell.” and “I can sense his ego swelling as we speak.”
  • Assail: As in “We were assailed by pirates on our way here.” and “This ship is unassailable.”
  • Sale → Sail: As in “There’s a big sail down at the boat store.”
  • *sale* → *sail*: Words containing “sale” can be turned into sailing puns: presail, resail, sailsclerk, sailsperson, wholesail.
  • Exhale → Ex-sail: As in, “Inhale, ex-sail.”
  • *sil*→ *sail*: Words with a “sil” sound can be changed to “sail”: “Imbesail (imbecile),” and “Reconsail (reconcile),” and “Sailence (silence).”
  • Can you → Canoe: As in “I can’t think of any more boat puns. Canoe?”
  • I’m out of → Armada: An “armada” is a fleet of warships. Example sentences: “This is scary! Armada here!” and “Armada boat puns, do you have any?”.
  • You t* → Yacht*: If a word beginning with “t” follows the word “you”, a yacht pun can often be made. For example: “You’ll never know till yachtry.” and “I’m glad I bumped into yachtoday.”
  • 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.”
  • Cog*: As in, “Cogito ergo sum,” and “Just another cog in the machine.” Notes: cogito ergo sum is a philosophical expression meaning “I think, therefore I am.” A cog is a type of ship. 
  • Clog → Cog: As in, “Clever cogs,” and “Cog up,” and “Pop your cogs.” Notes: Clever clogs is a disapproving way of saying that someone is clever, but in an irritating way. To pop your clogs is to die. 
  • *cog*: As in, “Cognitive,” and “Cognition,” and “Incognito,” and “Recognise,” and “Recognition.” 
  • Overboard: As in, “Man overboard!” and “This is going overboard.”
  • * port*: As in, “Any port in a storm,” and “Blow out of proportion,” and “The first port of call,” and “A golden opportunity,” and “Land of opportunity,” and “Moral support,” and “What’s more important here?” Note: a port is a commercial facility where ships dock to load and unload cargo. 
  • Maria → Marina: As in “Marina, could you please pass the pepper?”
  • Maureen/Mareen  → Marine: As in “Marine, your name works well as boat pun.”

Boat-Related Phrases

Common phrases, idioms and cliches which are related to boats can be used for some subtle and witty word play. Here is a list of the boat themed phrases that we’ve found so far:

  • A stern talking to
  • Off the hook
  • Boy meets girl (Buoy meets gull)
  • Go to hell (hull)
  • They tied (tide) the knot
  • Batten down the hatches
  • Harboring strong feelings
  • Rock the boat
  • Pleasure craft
  • Hanging about (aboat)
  • All for naught (nautical)
  • Above board
  • As helpful as a screen door on a submarine
  • Throwing the baby out with the bathwater (bilge water)
  • Loose lips sink ships
  • Barge right in
  • Drown your sorrows
  • Drunk as a sailor
  • Fish out of water
  • He’s fishing for compliments
  • Hook, line and sinker,
  • A sea change
  • Knots in one’s stomach
  • Rats abandon a sinking ship
  • Plain sailing
  • She’s not the only fish in the sea
  • Strait and narrow
  • Still waters run deep
  • Take the wind out of his sails
  • Three sheets in the wind
  • Throw caution to the winds
  • To fish in troubled waters
  • Captain of one’s soul
  • Cast your bread upon the waters
  • Come hell or high water
  • Dead in the water
  • Devil and the deep blue sea
  • Different kettle of fish
  • A whale of a good time
  • Dock your pay
  • From sea to shining sea
  • Get your second wind
  • Anchors aweigh
  • Hold at bay
  • Any port in a storm
  • I didn’t come down the clyde in a banana boat
  • In hot water
  • Keep your head above water
  • Know which way the wind blows
  • Like a cork in the ocean
  • May the wind be at your back
  • A fine kettle of fish
  • Sleep with the fishes
  • Sink or swim
  • Something smells fishy
  • Tell that to the marines
  • That’s water under the bridge
  • Up shit creek without a paddle
  • Walk the plank
  • Wind swept hair
  • Water over the dam
  • Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Boat-Related Words

There are likely hundred more boat puns to be made, and that aren’t included in this Punpedia entry, so here’s a list of boat-related words to help you in your pun authorship process. If you come up with a good one, please share it with us in the comments at the bottom of the page!

ship, canoe, yacht, fathom, wake, marina, pleasure craft, sail, sailboat, watercraft, motorboat, pontoon, barge, tugboat, kayak, lifeboat, scow, longboat, powerboat, rowboat, vessel, ferry, sculler, bumboat, steamboat, ark, gondola, navigation, propellor, tug, submarine, navy, sloop, skiff, dinghy, paddleboat, yawl, boating, boater, paddle, houseboat, schooner, formast, surfboat, boatyard, troller, sailing, freighter, trawler, fisherman, dock, hull, planing, felucca, trimaran, lake, ocean, sea, barque, galleon, trireme, sailor, mainsail, foresail, carrack, rudder, water, topsail, mast, pinnace, cutter, row, punt, mooring, oar, scull, oars, tack, mackinaw, hoy, galley, boatie, boatload, topmast, shipbuilder, jetboat, jibe, lateen, nautical, monohull, cruise ship, plank, deck, poop deck, bow, cannon, motor, fishing, fish, scuba, diving, ahoy, submersible, hovercraft, aboard, board, landing, headsail, aground, captain, flag, cruise, craft, crew, docked, sink, shipwreck, bilge, bilge pump, titanic, pirate, sank, drown, moored, float, buoy, buoyant, buoyancy, warship, deckhand, outboard motor, harpoon, fishing rod, fibreglass, fleet, steamer, stern, tanker, ice-breaker, catamaran, messmate, port, porthole, anchor, rig, knot, bowsprit, container ship, pirate ship, slave trade, naval, wind, wave, waves, battleship, corvette, supertanker, mayflower, stranded, mutiny, peg leg, windlass, flagship, bay, life jacket, Mediterranean, Pacific, quarterdeck, onboard, monsoon, sunken, boarded, coast guard, abandon ship, bail out, piracy, cargo hold, cargo, banana boat, seawater, ocean spray, reef, whale, ocean liner, super liner, seagulls, mainstay, grapnel, davit, cox, crossjack, reel, rod, net, haul, jigger, clip, knots, riding lamp, canal, fishery, sharpie, torpedo, adrift, pier, ballast, cuddy, seamen, dredge, ferrying, marine, coastal, oceanic, Atlantic, gulf, seagoing, seafaring, offshore, seaborne, strait, dhow, frigate, asea, mariner, seafloor, shipping, Carribean, harbor, coastline, cruiser, destroyer, seaworthy, voyage, sweep, square sail, balloon sail, bearing, pintoon, river, skipper, commodore, helmsman, admiral, colonel, shipmaster, circumnavigate, crow’s nest, hydro, hydroplane, anchoring, submerged, cabin, docks, jetski, fish finder, ketch, radar, starboard, port side, astern, inboard, abaft, bulkhead, armada

Boat Jokes

Only the most terrible jokes use puns in their punchline, and so it is with great pleasure that we bring you the most terrible boat jokes!

  • Which type of vegetable is banned on ships? – Leeks!
  • What’s a pirate’s favorite letter? – Aye, you may think it’s the RRRRR, but it’s the C that they’re in love with!
  • What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? – A nervous wreck!
  • When the bottom of a cargo ship got a hole, it had one hull of a problem.
  • The cost of a galvanized hull is enough to zinc a ship.
  • When the captain’s ship ran aground he couldn’t fathom why.
  • What did the ship’s captain say when he got stuck trying to navigate through a narrow channel? – We’re in dire straits!
  • Why is sailing like oil drilling? – They’re both a crewd business!
  • How much did the pirate pay for his piercings? – A buck-an-ear!
  • Why couldn’t the famous pirate sell his ship? – Because it was unassailable.
  • Why did the admiral decide against buying a new hat? – He was worried about cap sizing
  • What’s another name for the captain of a sail boat? – A sails manager!
  • Why is pirating addictive? – Once ye lose yer first hand, ye get hooked!
  • I used to have a fear of boats, but that ship has sailed.
  • Making a boat out of stone would be a hardship.
  • A pirate ship is assailing vessel.
  • I once saw a juggler juggling twenty paddles. It was oar inspiring.
  • Why were cruises cheaper before steam boats were invented?  – Because cruises were always on sail
  • Do you want to keep paddling in circles or not? It’s an either oar situation.
  • I’m not one for buoyancy, but whatever floats your boat.
  • Big sale on rowing paddles at my local shop. It’s quite an oar deal.
  • I refused to live in the same cabin as the captain. This didn’t boat dwell with him.
  • Old sailors never die, they just get a little dinghy.
  • I can’t think of any more boat puns. Canoe?
  • A tanker transporting blue paint collided into another tanker carrying red paint. Both crews were marooned.
  • Why did the admiral decide against buying a new hat? – He was afraid of cap sizing.

Boat Pun Images

Looking for visual boat puns? We’ve got you covered. Here’s some beautiful and terrible puns in image-form. If you find a good one that isn’t included here, or if you create you own, please share it with us by linking in the comments!

Did this Punpedia entry help you?

All stocked up on boat puns? Or maybe you’re looking for something more specific that wasn’t in this entry? More boat jokes? More visual puns? A bigger list of boat puns that you can use in conversation? Whatever the case, please let us know in the comments! One of our curators or a member of the Punpedia community will do their best to help you out. And as always, if you have any boat puns that we don’t, please share them with us in the comments! Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂

Beach Puns

This entry covers puns about the beach and closely related concepts. You may also like to read the entries on water puns, fish puns, boat puns, shark puns, summer puns and dolphin puns. If you’re looking for beach puns in images, scroll to the bottom of this page.

Beach puns are among the most popular units of word play used by casual punners. Instagram captions have presented a great opportunity for this category to thrive, and during the summer season the usage of beach-related puns is at its highest (source):

And a fun fact: If you arrived at this page via a search for beach captions for Instagram you’re among more than 1000 other users who also go in search of (arguably) funny beach puns like those in this entry. Beach captions with puns (and especially really bad puns) are a staple across most social media platforms though.

Beach puns are also commonly used for beach house names such as “sea la vie”, “seas the day” and “sea-esta”. A common naming technique appears to involve selecting a well known phrase which has a relaxing or inspiring theme, and finding a beach or ocean based pun involving it.

Beach Puns List

Below is list of puns for beach-related topics with associated example sentences for each. Most of these puns are terrible, which is part of their appeal, but there are many puns which are quite good thanks to their subtlety.

  • Sure → Shore: As in “Are you shore?” and “She shore is strong!”.
  • Really → Reely: As in “This is a reely good pun” and “I’m having a reely good day at the beach!”.
  • 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), shrimportshrimpudent, shrimpact, shrimperfect, shrimpaled, shrimpartial, shrimpart. Shrimp puns probably deserve their own entry, but until then you can use this list to help you.
  • Something → Somefin: As in “There’s somefin about the way he walks” and “Is that a shark, or somefin else?”.
  • Nothing → Nofin: As in “Nofin is better than swimming with dolphins” and “I’ve got nofin left to give!”.
  • 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?”
  • Confiscate → Conch-fish-scate: As in “I’m going to have to conchfishcate your pun licence for that one.”
  • Single→ Shingle: As in “Yes, I’m shingle.” and “I can’t think of a shingle beach pun.”
  • Celebration→ Shellebration: As in “After finishing we should have a shellebration.”
  • Row/Roe: “Row” as in “row your boat” and “roe” as in fish or shellfish eggs, are two words that can be inserted into many other words: roetine/rowtine (routine), rowmans/roemans (romans), rowtation/roetation (rotation), rowd/roed (rowed), rowse (rose), rowl (roll), rowp, rowmantic, rowbust, rowbot, rowgue, roest.
  • Guilty → Gillty: As in “Your honour, I plead not gillty” and “Gillty as charged”.
  • Kil* → Krill*: Kill, kilogram, killer, killing, kilowatt are all words that can be punned with “krill”. For example: “I just bought a krillogram of tofu” and “Krilling sentient creatures is often morally wrong”.
  • Kill → Keel: As in “We can be healthy with plants, keeling animals is not necessary.”
  • *kily → *keely: Words containing “kil” can often be turned into boat puns: luckeely, huskeely, shakeely, silkeely, cheekeely, jerkeely, sneakeely, spookeely, freakeely.
  • Kil* → Keel*: Words starting with “kil” can be made into boat puns: keelogram, keelolitres, keeln (kiln), keeling, keeler, keelt (kilt), keeljoy.
  • God → Cod: As in “There have been hundreds of cods invented throughout history” and “Cod is very cruel in the Old Testament” and “We’re lucky that cod is made up!”.
  • Pawn/Pwn → Prawn: This pun can be used in the gamer-culture sense: “I got prawned 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.”
  • Sardonic: Sardonic means “grimly mocking or cynical”, and it sounds a bit like “sardine” (the small fish), so you might us this like: “It’s okay if you don’t like seaside puns but there’s no reason to be sardonic“. For extra cheesiness you can also use “sardinonic“, which is even closer to the word “sardine”, but is not a real word.
  • Feeling → Eeling: As in “I’ve got a funny eeling about this…” and “I’m eeling bad about the state of this conversation”.
  • Opportunity → Opportunaty: As in “We’ve got one opportunaty, let’s make it count” and “Luck is  often combination of preparation and opportunaty“.
  • Opportunity → Op-perch-tuna-ty: As in “I’m glad I got an op-perch-tuna-ty to say this pun.”
  • *tun* → *tuna*: Generalising the above example, we can make a tuna pun on many words that contain “tun”: opportunaist, attunament, fortuna-teller, fortunately, tunable.
  • 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.
  • Girl* → Gill*: As in “There was a strange gill sitting on the beach today.” and “Where is your gillfriend today?”
  • Ill* → Gill*: If a word starts with “ill”, it can be replaced with “gill” to create a pun. Here’s a list of words to get you started: gillustrate (illustrate), gillegal (illegal), gillness (illness), gillusion (you get the idea), gillogical, gilliterate, gilluminate, gilluminati, gillusive.
  • Hil* → Gill*: If a word starts with “hil”, it can be replaced with “gill” to create a pun. Here’s a list of words to get you started: gill (hill), gillarious (hilarious), gillarity (hilarity), gilltop (hilltop).
  • Debate → Debait: As in “I don’t want to debait you.” and “We’re just having a friendly debait“.
  • Meant to → Manta: As in “I manta buy her a gift, but I forgot.” and “Is it manta make that sound?”. If you’re feeling brave you might also like to try “manta ray” as a replacement for “meant to say”.
  • Summon → Salmon: As in “He salmoned a spirit from the underworld.” and “Please salmon the duke, I have an urgent message!”.
  • Someone → Salmon: As in “Will salmon please help me?” and “Salmon’s at the door”.
  • Crea* → Cray*: Many words that begin with “crea” can be used to make shoddy crayfish puns. For example: crayture (creature), craytive (creative), crayte (create).
  • Crayon: The word “crayon” includes “cray” – the short version of “crayfish”, and so can be used as a pun.
  • Had → Haddock: A beautiful and terrible pun using the name of a North Atlantic bottom-dwelling fish. An example sentence might be: “I’ve haddock enough.”
  • Mack → Mackerel: The word “mack” is slang for “to flirt”. To “mack on” someone is to “hit on” them. One could make a very bad pun with the word “mackerel” (a type of fish).
  • Ra* → Ray*: Many words that start with “ra” can be made into puns with “ray” (short for “sting ray”). For example: rayte (rate), raynge (range), rayse (raise), rayce (race), raydio, raylway, rayn, rayl, raytio, raydiation, raynbow, raycism, raynger. Many more can be made using this list.
  • *ration → *raytion: If a word ends in “ration” you can almost always make a stingray pun with it. For example: operaytion, administraytion, consideraytion, generaytion, concentraytion, corporaytion, preparaytion, demonstraytion, integraytion, registraytion, separaytion. You’ll find many more examples in this list.
  • *rag* → *rayg*: If a word contains “rag” it can sometimes be punned on. For example: “This discussion is absolutely outraygeous!”. Other examples are: discourayge, coverayge and beverayge.
  • Cuddle → Cuttle: As in “Would you like a cuttle?” and “Cuttling you is nice :)”. Cuttlefish bones often wash up on beaches in some regions of the world.
  • *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.
  • Purpose → Porpoise: As in “I didn’t do it on porpoise!” and “What is the porpoise of this?” See the dolphin puns entry for more.
  • 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).
  • It’s cool → School: The collective noun for a group of fish is “school”, as in “a school of fish”. So, replacing “it’s cool” with “school” gives us puns like “School, don’t worry about it” and “Don’t worry, school, she’ll be back soon.”
  • 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).
  • Brilliant → Krilliant: As in “Isn’t the weather just krilliant today?” Krill are small shrimplike 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”.
  • Hearing → Herring: As in “He is hard of herring.” and “The judge said he will receive a second herring on Tuesday”.
  • *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.
  • 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).
  • *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.
  • Fan* → Fin*: “fan” can sometimes be replaced with “fin” at the start of words to create fin puns: fintastic (fantastic), finciful (fanciful), finfare (fanfare), fintasy, findom, finciful.
  • Fine/Fin./Find/Fun → Fin: The word “fin” can be used to replace many small words than have both ‘f’ and ‘n’ like “fun” and “find”. The term “fin” also a French word meaning “finish”, and so is sometimes seen at the end of old films and books.
  • Hell of it → Halibut: As in “Why? Just for the halibut!”. Halibut is a marine flatfish.
  • Obs* → Lobs*: If a word begins with “obs” a terrible lobster pun can sometimes be made by switching it with “lobs”, as in observation (lobservation, or even lobstervation), obstruction (lobstruction or even lobsterusction), obscurity (lobscurity), obsolescence (lobseolescence), obsessively (lobsessively).
  • Fumble/Struggle → Flounder: The word “flounder” can refer to a small, common flatfish found in coastal waters and also, as a verb, to struggling, staggering or clumsily trying to do something. Use “flounder” to replace words like fumble and struggle: “He made a good sea pun at the start, but then floundered for the rest of his speech.”
  • 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”.
  • Or → Oar: As in “Let’s go oar we’ll be late!” and “Should we swim oar keep sunbaking?”.
  • Or* → Oar*: If a word starts with “or” it can be replaced with “oar” for a neat little boat pun. Some examples: oarganisation, oariginally, oarange, oarchestra, oargan, oarbit, oarnament, oarthodoxy, oariental, oarnaments, oarchid, oardering.
  • *or → *oar: If a word ends in “or” it’s an easy “oar” pun: foar (for), doar (door), majoar (major), poardirectoar, doctoar, floar, factoar, sectoar, noar, authoar, professoar, erroar, motoar, visitoar, solicitoar, mirroar, editoar, senioar, chancelloar, councilloar, inspectoar, monitoar, governoar, actoar, minoar, interioar, corridoar, horroar, emperoar, mayoar, operatoar, investoar, manoar, vendoar, processoar, sponsoar, junioar.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Simp* → Shrimp*: Words beginning with “simp” can often be made into shrimp puns by replacing the “simp” with “shrimp”: shrimple (simple), shrimplification, shrimplify, shrimplistically, shrimpleminded, shrimpleton.
  • 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.”
  • 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.”
  • 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.”
  • Con* → Conch*: A terrible shell pun can be made of almost any word that begins with “con”: conchtrol (control), conchsider (consider), conchtinue (continue), conchdition, conchtract, conchern, conchtain, conchference, conchtext, conchcept, conchtrast, conchfidence, conchtent, conchtribution, conchflict, conchsideration, conchstruction, conchtinued, conchclusion, conchduct, conchversation, conchgress, conchsumer, conchcentrate, conchtribute.
  • 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.
  • Snap → Snapper: As in “Please snapper my neck if my puns ever get worse than this.”
  • Must → Mast: As in “We mast sail towards that island!” and “We mastn’t get too confident”.
  • Mas* → Mast*: Sometimes a word that begins with “mas” can be made into a boat pun by a replacement of “mas” with “mast”: mastacre (massacre), mastculinity, mastonry, mastochistic, mastquerading, mastage (massage). Obviously we can also make puns when a word starts with “mast”: master, masterpiece, masterminding.
  • 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”.
  • *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.
  • Muscle → Mussel: As in “Yeah, she’s so mussely!” and “Mussels are made up of millions of tiny cells”.
  • Go be → Goby: As in “Goby alone for a while – it will help”. A “goby” us a small fish which has a sucker on its underside.
  • Help → Kelp: As in “Can you please kelp me build a sand castle?” and “Katie, kelp your brother lift that please”.
  • Friend → Frond: As in “My fronds made me a cute vegan birthday cake!” and “They’re such frondly people!”.
  • Seizure → Seazure: As in “If I read one more ocean pun I’m going to have a seazure.”
  • Fringe → Frondge: As in “Doesn’t your frondge get in your eyes when you’re swimming?”
  • Palm: As in “The only thing not sunburned are my palms“. The pun is on palm trees in case you missed that.
  • Calm → Palm: As in, “A palming influence,” and “The palm before the storm,” and “Palm down!” and “Cool, palm, collected,” and “Keep palm and carry on.”
  • *bably → *bubbly: As in “I’m probubbly going to stick around for a bit longer” and “It was indescribubbly mysterious” and “All the while he just impertububbly paced along the shore”.
  • 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).
  • *pon → *prawn: Words ending in “pon” can be converted to prawn puns by replacing it with “prawn”: weaprawn (weapon), couprawn (coupon), whereuprawn (whereupon), tamprawn (tampon), thereuprawn (thereupon), uprawn (upon), whereuprawn (whereupon).
  • *pear → *peir: 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 speir you’ve got there”.
  • *able → *abubble: Words ending in “able” can be converted to terrible bubble puns by replacing it with “abubble”: reasonabubble (reasonable), availabubble (available), enabubble (enable), comfortabubble (comfortable), valuabubble (valuable), constabubble (constable), acceptabubble, capabubble, inevitabubble, vegetabubble, suitabubble, variabubble, vulnerabubble, profitabubble, acceptabubble, sylabubble, reliabubble, … Many more shameful puns like this can be made with the help a of list like this one.
  • 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.
  • Place → Plaice: “plaice” is a common North Atlantic flatfish.
  • Clam*: Words that begin with clam can be used as shellfish puns: clamouring, clammy, clamp, clamber, clampdown.
  • Boy → Buoy: As in “It’s a buoy!” and “His buoyfriend is a great person”.
  • Bubbly: “bubbly” has a “this water is bubbly” sense and a “he has a really bubbly personality” sense.
  • 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”.
  • Surgeon → Sturgeon: A “sturgeon” is the name of a large fish – it sounds like “surgeon”, a medical professional.
  • *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.
  • 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.”
  • Acquaintance → Aquaintance: As in “I don’t know her well, she’s just an aquaintance“.
  • Not → Naut: As in “I’m naut going to keep arguing with you”.
  • Naughty → Nauty: As in “There’s that nauty sailor again”.
  • Tied → Tide: As in “I’m tide up at the moment, can someone else help?” and “Yep, they tide the knot!”
  • Tidy → Tidey: As in “After the party we need to tidey the beach.”
  • Tad → Shad: A “shad” is a common herring-like fish which lives in the sea and breeds in rivers.
  • Sandwich: As in “I was eating my sandwich at the beach”.
  • Sanctuary → Sandctuary: As in “Dogs aren’t allowed on this beach because it’s an animal sandctuary“.
  • 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.”
  • Gullible → Seagullible: As in “Kyani is so seagullible!”
  • Puffing → Puffin: A puffin is a seabird found near northern and arctic waters. An example sentence: “He ran along the beach, puffin his chest as he passed the ladies”.
  • Crazy → Cray-sea: As in “He is so craysea!” and “Enough of this crayseaness!”. Hyphen is, of course, optional.
  • Turn → Tern: A “tern” is a sea bird similar to a seagull, but smaller and with a forked tail.
  • Wish → Fish: As in “I just fish we had more time!” and “If you rub the lamp you get three fishes“.
  • Stark → Shark: As in “The shark contrast between his and his boyfriend’s attire was intriguing.” and “The old, shark house stood looming above us”.
  • About/Abode → Aboat: As in “What aboat the captain?” and “Welcome to my aboat!”
  • Jelly: Can be used as a pun on jellyfish and the slang term for jealous (“Oh you’re just jelly.”) and as a pun on the food item.
  • Hell/Haul → Hull: As in “Hull is a fiery place.” and “We’ll need a bigger truck to hull all these goods.”
  • 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).
  • Waded: Along with walking through water, this can mean to “read laboriously through a long piece of writing”, so a water pun could be by using it with this definition: “Wading through your last comment was difficult.” It could also just be used in place of “walk”.
  • Could → Cod: As in “I codn’t understand that.” and “Sorry I cod only stay for a few minutes last night”.
  • Bitch → Beach: As in “Those beaches don’t know me!” and “She says you were being a bit beachy“.
  • Each → Beach: As in “Beach of us have our own towel”.
  • Bae → Bay: As in “Bay! Please stop with the beach puns, you’re embarrassing me.”
  • 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).

Beach-Related Phrases

Common phrases, idioms and cliches which are related to the beach can be used for some subtle and witty word play. Here is a list of the beach themed phrases that we’ve found so far:

  • Keel over and die
  • To see stars
  • Like a fish out of water
  • Plenty of fish in the sea
  • That shore is (funny/sad/long/etc.)
  • Something fishy about that
  • The coast is clear
  • Bigger fish to fry
  • Surfing the net
  • Happy as a clam
  • One sandwich short of a picnic
  • Channel surfing
  • Devil and the deep blue sea
  • Don’t rock the boat
  • A sea change
  • For everything, there is a season
  • He’s fishing for compliments
  • High-tide / High water mark
  • Hook, line and sinker
  • He/She has one oar out of water
  • Going against the tide
  • Jump the shark
  • Lay there like a beached whale
  • Muddy the water
  • My head is swimming
  • My lips are sealed
  • Paddle your own canoe
  • Back to the salt mine
  • Blood is thicker than water
  • Sealed with a loving kiss
  • She’s not the only fish in the sea
  • Signed, sealed and delivered
  • Sink a shot (through the hoop)
  • Sink or swim
  • To sink your teeth into
  • A fine kettle of fish
  • Butter fingers
  • That argument doesn’t hold water
  • That’s water under the bridge
  • Take it with a grain of salt
  • A picture is worth a thousand words
  • Whatever floats your boat
  • Dead in the water
  • Distance makes the heart grow fronder
  • A whale of a time
  • Keep your head above water
  • Drinks like a fish
  • Drunk as a sailor
  • Drowning your sorrows
  • Feeling blue
  • An albatross around the neck
  • From sea to shining sea
  • As big as a whale
  • In a nutshell
  • Keep at bay
  • Last resort
  • Mexican wave
  • No man is an island
  • Neither fish nor foul
  • Out of the blue
  • Plain sailing
  • Bubble and squeak
  • Queer fish
  • Ripped me off
  • Rising tide
  • Rub salt in the wound
  • Sands of time
  • Burst your bubble
  • Bury your head in the sand
  • A drop in the ocean
  • Stem the tide
  • Surf and turf
  • Take a long walk off a short pier
  • Teeth as white as pearls
  • Clam up and be quiet
  • The net result
  • Throw in the towel
  • Trim one’s sails
  • Walking on sunshine
  • A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle
  • Worth one’s salt

Beach-Related Words

This Punpedia entry certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of all the possible beach puns, so below is a large list of beach themed words which you can use to invent your own puns. Some of the words below are leaning towards ocean-related, rather than precisely beach-related, and some of the items in this list are phrases rather than words. Here they are:

abalone, aboard, albatross, anemone, aquaculture, aquatic, archipelago, ashore, barrel, bathers, bathing, bay, beach ball, beach bum, beached, beach chair, beach goer, beach hut, beach towel, beach umbrella, bubble, frond, beachcomber, beaches, beachfront, beach-side, beachwear, bikini, blowhole, blue, blue sky, board shorts, boardwalk, boat, body board, body surfing, Bondi, brackish, breaker, breaking, buoy, canal, canoe, canoes, cape, Caribbean, cessel, clam, coast, coastal, coastline, coconut, conch, conch shell, coral, cove, crab, crabs, crash, crustacean, current, cuttlefish, deck chair, diver, diving, dog beach, dolphin, driftwood, drown, dune, dune buggy, dunes, erosion, estuaries, estuarine, estuary, fin, fish, fisheries, fishermen, fishnet, fishery, fishing, flip-flips, flip-flop, flipper, float, floater, floating, flounder, foam, foamy, foreshore, goggles, gravel, gulf, gull, harbor, harbour, hawaii, hermit crab, high tide, hot, island, isle, jellyfish, jet ski, jetsam, jetty, kayak, kite surfing, keel, lagoon, life-saver, lifeguard, light house, limestone, lobster, low tide, mangrove, marine, marine biology, maritime, marooned, mollusc, mudflat, mussel, nautical, net, nude beach, nudist, ocean, oceanic, oceanographer, ocean-side, ocean view, offshore, onshore, over-fishing, oyster, pacific, paddle, paddle board, paddling, palm, palm tree, parasailing, pearl, pebble, pelican, picnic, pier, pirate, pontoon, porpoise, powerboat, recreation, reef, resort, rip, rock pool, sail, sailors, saline, salt, salt water, salty, sanctuary, sand, sand bar, sand castle, sand dune, sand flea, sand hopper, sand skipper, sandbank, sandbar, sandles, sand ridge, sandy, scuba, scuba diving, sea, sea anemone, sea bird, sea cucumber, sea gull, sea life, sea spray, sea turtle, seabed, seaborne, sea craft, seafloor, seafood, sea grass, seahorse, seal, seascape, seashell, sea shore, seaside, sea spray, seaward, seawater, seaweed, sediment, shallow, shark, shell, shellfish, shingle, ship, ships, shoal, shore, shoreline, sink, sinking, snorkel, SOS, splash, splashing, starfish, stilt, sting ray, strait, submerge, submerged, sun, sun bathing, sun bake, sunbathers, sunburn, sunglasses, sunny, sunrise, sunscreen, sunset, surf, surfboard, surfers, surfing, swell, sweltering, swim, shark, swimming, swimsuit, tan, tanning, thong, thongs, tidal, tide, tide pool, tidepool, towel, trawler, trawling, treasure, tropical, turquoise, turtle, umbrella, underwater, urchin, vacation, walrus, water, waterfront, water, waters, wave, waves, wet, wet suit, whale, wharf, wreckage, yacht, between the flags, tsunami, real, Bali, white sand, hot sand, windy

Beach Jokes

Jokes of the exceedingly cheesy or one-liner variety usually involve some sort of pun. Here’s a list of beach-themed jokes involving word play. Tap or hover on the black rectangles to reveal the answer.

  • What did one tide-pool say to the other tide-pool? – Show me your mussels!
  • What did the beach say to the wave? – “Long tide, no sea”
  • What washes up on very small beaches? – Microwaves!
  • What did the ocean say to the beach? – Nothing, it just waved
  • Why was the sand wet? – Because the sea weed!
  • What did the shark plead in the murder case? – Not gill-ty
  • Why do sea-gulls fly over the sea? – Because if they flew over the bay they would be bagels!
  • How do oysters call their friends? – On shell phones!
  • What is the strongest creature in the sea?  – A mussel!
  • Why are some fish at the bottom of the ocean? – Because they dropped out of school!
  • Where do crabs go to borrow money? – The prawn broker!
  • Why do fish swim in salt water? – Because pepper makes them sneeze!
  • What gets wetter the more it dries? – A towel!
  • What does a mermaid wear to maths lessons? – An algae-bra!
  • Where do little fish go every morning? – To plaice school!
  • What did the ocean say to the sand? – I mist you!
  • Where do fish sleep? – On a seabed!
  • What did Cinderella wear when she went swimming in the ocean? – Glass flippers!
  • How does the ocean say goodbye? – It waves!
  • What is a cetacean’s favourite TV show? – Whale of fortune!
  • How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? – Tentacles
  • What is the best day to go to the beach? – Sunday!
  • Where does a ship go when it’s sick? – To the dock!
  • Where does a fish go to borrow money? – A loan shark!
  • Which fish is the most famous? – The star fish!
  • Why don’t oysters share their pearls? – Because they’re shellfish!
  • Why are fish so smart? – Because they live in schools!
  • Which part of a fish weighs the most? – The scales!
  • Which fish is the most valuable? – The goldfish!
  • What happens when you throw a green rock into the Red Sea? – It gets wet!
  • What do you get when you cross a fish and an elephant? – Swimming trunks!
  • Why is the sand so quiet? – Because the waves keep going “Shhhh!”

Beach Pun Images

Looking for beach puns in image or meme form? Below is a collection of beach pun pictures that we’ve managed to find. Have you found or made a good one? Post us the link in a comment at the bottom of the page 🙂

Beach Pun Conversations & Battles

Spontaneous pun battles and pun conversations are common on most social media platforms (Reddit and Facebook in particular), and also in SMS conversations and forum threads. Here’s a collection of screenshots of conversations involving beach puns:

Did this Punpedia entry help you?

Whether you were looking for a punny beach caption, a really good beach pun to out-wit your friends in a pun battle or a cute beach pun for your beach shack or pet fish’s name, we really hope this entry in Punpedia has been helpful to you. If you’ve got any suggestions for puns that we’ve missed, Punpedia entries that you want us to write, or just general suggestions for how Punpedia can be improved, please feel free to leave us a comment below! Thanks 🙂