Crab Puns

Halfway through a pun battle about crabs? Naming your new hermit crab? Or maybe you just want to stock up on some crab puns for future reference. Whatever the case, this Punpedia entry is all about crabs and crustaceans, so you’re in the right place!

You may also like to read the entries on beach punsocean puns, water puns, fish puns, boat puns, shark puns, whale puns and dolphin puns.

Not that this entry also includes lobster puns, prawn puns, and more generally, crustacean puns. If you’re looking for visual crab puns (memes, comics, images), scroll to the bottom of this page.

Crab Puns List

Below is list of puns for crab-related topics with associated example sentences for each. Most of these puns are terrible, which is probably exactly what you’re after, but there are a few diamonds in the rough, so get digging! Oh and some items explain a “pattern” which can be applied to create many crab puns. In these items, the asterisk, “*”, denotes a wild card (one or more letters).

Remember, there’s lobster puns, shellfish puns, and other crab-related puns mixed throughout, so if you’re having a purely crab-based pun battle or something like that, then just know that not all of these will be relevant 🙂

  • Captivating → Crabtivating: As in “That was an incredibly crabtivating speech.”
  • Cab → Crab: As in “I think the crab-driver was drunk.”
  • Cab* → Crab*: If a word starts with “caB” we can make a terrible crab pun of it: crabinet (cabinet), crabbage (cabbage), crabaret (cabaret), crabling (cabling), crable (cable), cabbies (crabbies).
  • Cap* → Crab*: If a word starts with “cap” we can make a terrible crab pun: crabital (capital), crabacity (capacity), crabtain (captain), crabitalism (capitalism), crababilities (capabilities), crabtion (caption), crabuccino (cappuccino), crabpricious (capricious), crabsicum (capsicum).
  • Capable → Crab-apple: As in “I am completely crab-apple of completing this task ma’am.”
  • *cab* → *crab*: If a word contains “cab” we can often make a terrible crab pun: applicrability (applicability), amicrable (amicable), dispicrable (dispicable), replicrable (replicable), scrabbard (scabbard), vocrabulary (vocabulary).
  • Carbohydrates → Crabohydrates: As in “Low-crabohydrate diets are just an unhealthy fad.”
  • Carbon → Crabon: As in “Crabon-fibre is the new chitin.” and “We need more bicrabonate soda.”
  • Cry → Cray: As in “These puns are making me cray.”
  • Clammy: As in “Can we open some windows? It’s a bit clammy in here.”
  • Crave → Crayve: As in “I’m crayving some tofu right now.”
  • Cra* → Cray*: Words that start with the “cray” sound can be crayfish puns: craydle (cradle), crayg (craig), craynial (cranial), crayzy, crayter, crayziness.
  • Crabby: As in “He just woke up, he’s a little crabby.”
  • Crabbed: As in “Sorry, I’m just a little crabbed because my team lost.”
  • Grab → Crab: As in “Can you crab me a glass of water while you’re up please?”
  • Grabbing → Crabbing: As in “I’m just crabbing a drink before we go.”
  • Nap → Nip: As in “If you’re drowsy, have a nip.”
  • Pinch: As in “A pinch of salt will do, thanks.”
  • Law → Claw: As in “We need to abide by the claw.”
  • Clor* → Claw*: If a word begins with the “clor” sound then we can make a silly claw pun: clawstrophobia (claustrophobia), clawdia (claudia), clawophyll (chlorophyll).
  • Decrepit → Decapod: A very laboured pun. A decapod is “a crustacean of the order Decapoda, such as a shrimp, crab, or lobster.” Decrepit means elderly and infirm or “worn out or ruined because of age or neglect”.
  • Shit n’ → Chitin: Chitin is the material which forms the exoskeleton of arthropods (like insects and crustaceans). Example sentence: “Eat chitin die.”
  • Cheatin’ → Chitin’: Chitin is the material which forms the exoskeleton of arthropods (like insects and crustaceans). Example sentence: “That chitin’ bastard stole my money!”
  • Lost her → Lobster: As in “My kid’ll be so angry that I lobster favourite teddy.”
  • Sheila → Chela: “Sheila” is Australian slang for “woman”: “This chela runs the department store down the road.”
  • Hermit: As in “Yes, the old hermit has lived there for years.”
  • Scuttle: As in “I saw her scuttling down the street the other day.”
  • Sure → Shore: As in “Are you shore?” and “She shore is strong!”.
  • Imp* → Shrimp*: If a word starts with “imp”, you can usually replace it with “shrimp”, for example: shrimportant (important), shrimpossible (impossible), shrimply (imply), shrimpose (you get the idea), shrimpose, shrimportshrimpudent, shrimpact, shrimperfect, shrimpaled, shrimpartial, shrimpart. Shrimp puns probably deserve their own entry, but until then you can use this list to help you.
  • 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?”
  • Celebration→ Shellebration: As in “After finishing we should have a shellebration.”
  • Roe: “Row” as in “row your boat” and “roe” as in shellfish eggs, are two words that can be inserted into many other words: roetine (routine), roemans (romans), roetation (rotation), roed (rowed), roese (rose), roel (roll), roep, roemantic, roebust, roebot, roegue, roest.
  • 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”.
  • 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.”
  • 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.
  • 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”.
  • Selfish → Shellfish: As in “Stop being so shellfish.” See the next item for a generalisation of this pun.
  • Sell → Shell: As in “How many do we have left to shell?” and “Shell your soul to the devil.”
  • Shell: As in “I’m not going to shell out $50 for something I don’t even need!”
  • 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.
  • 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).
  • 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”.
  • 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).
  • 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.
  • 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.” and “Shell we dance? and “Ask and you shell receive.” and “Seek and you shell find.” and “The truth shell set you free.” and “You shell not pass!”
  • Symb* → Shrimpb*: Replacing the suffix “symb” with “shrimpb” gives some pleasantly jarring shrimp pins: shrimpbolic (symbolic), shrimpbolises (symbolises), shrimpbiosis (symbiosis).
  • 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.
  • *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”.
  • Seizure → Seazure: As in “If I read one more ocean pun I’m going to have a seazure.”
  • *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”.
  • *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).
  • *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.
  • Clam*: Words that begin with clam can be used as shellfish puns: clamouring, clammy, clamp, clamber, clampdown.
  • Bubbly: “bubbly” has a “this water is bubbly” sense and a “he has a really bubbly personality” sense.
  • *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“.
  • 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.”
  • Crazy → Cray-sea: As in “He is so craysea!” and “Enough of this crayseaness!”. Hyphen is, of course, optional.

Got crab puns that we don’t? Please share them in the comments. We’re especially looking for puns for: thorax, invertebrate, arthropod, isopod, branchiopod, swimmeret, copepod, ostracod, exoskeleton, pincer, chela, crustacean and carapace.

Crab-Related Phrases

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

  • Feel the pinch
  • In a pinch
  • Faster than a speeding crawfish
  • Having a little nip
  • Fishing for compliments
  • Penny pincher
  • Serious as cancer
  • Red in tooth and claw
  • He’s in hot water
  • Smells fishy
  • (We need more crab-related phrases, please suggest some in the comments!)

Crab-Related Words

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

king crab, king, dungeness crab, dungeness, lobster, shellfish, fish, shrimp, crustacean, fiddler crab, crab louse, stone crab, crayfish, prawn, seafood, spider crab, shell, exoskeleton, crabmeat, crab meat, crabby, crabby person, pincer, pincers, pinch, claw, jonah crab, grouch, complain, oyster, clam, mussel, abalone, hermit, hermit crab, carapace, scuttle, scurry, scamper, sideways, shell, crabs, crab, shrimps, seafloor, beach, tide pool, oceanside, porcelain crab, horseshoe crab, crab legs, sea animal, nipper, nip, barnacle, copepod, ostracod, krill, jointed limbs, arthropod, chitin, segmented body, segmented limbs, decapoda, decapod, isopod, branchiopod, branchiopoda, underwater, sea, ocean, water, aquatic, spiny lobster, crawfish, invertebrate, swimmeret, lobster tail, thorax, langoustine, crabstick, cancer, hard shell, palm crab, robber, crab, crabbed, crabbing, solder crab, chela, mud crab, crabwise, shed, land crab, rock crab

Crab Jokes

Jokes of the exceedingly cheesy or one-liner variety usually involve some sort of pun. Here’s a list of crab-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!
  • Why was the sand wet? – Because the sea weed!
  • How do oysters call their friends? – On shell phones!
  • What is the strongest creature in the sea?  – A mussel!
  • Where do crabs go to borrow money? – The prawn broker!
  • Why don’t oysters share their pearls? – Because they’re shellfish!
  • Why is the sand so quiet? – Because the waves keep going “Shhhh!”
  • Why did the crab need a day off work? – (He pulled a mussel!)
  • Who brings young crabs Christmas presents? – (Santa Claws!)
  • How much salt do crabs like on their food? – (Just a pinch)
  • So, this crab walks into a bar. The bartender says, “You look confused. Are you in the right place?” The crab replies, “Actually, I’m looking for a sand bar. “

Crab Pun Images

Looking for visual crab puns? Below is a collection of crab 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 🙂

Did this Punpedia entry help you?

Whether you were looking for a punny crab caption for your beach photo, a really good crab pun to out-wit your friends in a pun battle or a cute crab pun for your hermit crab’s, 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 for visiting 🙂

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