Turtle Puns

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

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

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

Turtle Puns List

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂

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 🙂

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 🙂