Punsters

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of individuals who create puns for amusement or cleverness
2. People known for their humor that involves wordplay, especially through puns
3. Enthusiasts or skilled practitioners of crafting witty phrases that play on words for comedic effect

Etymology: "Punsters" is the plural of "punster," so it is the plural of a word meaning someone who makes puns. The noun "punster" is built from "pun" plus the suffix "-ster," and that suffix has a long pedigree in English. It descends from an Old English form "-estre," which was used to make nouns for women or agents tied to a particular activity, and which appears in older words such as "spinster" and "seamstress." Its ancestor reaches back to a Proto-West Germanic form, so the ending has been doing this job in English for well over a thousand years. The surprise lies in the pairing. "Pun" is the older and more mysterious half of the word, while "-ster" is the familiar part, and combining them shows how English kept a dependable ending for naming people by what they do. Many English agent nouns followed the same pattern, which is why a word for a joke-maker can sound as traditional as a word for a spinner of thread.

Synonyms: jokers, wits