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 🙂