What a double entendre is

A term you'll meet in wordplay and rhetoric.

A double entendre is a word or phrase deliberately crafted to carry two meanings at once — typically an innocent surface meaning and a second, hidden one that is often risqué, ironic, or subversive. The phrase is French for "double meaning," and the doubleness is entirely intentional.

Two meanings, one surface

The art of the double entendre is that both readings genuinely work. The sentence makes perfect, innocent sense on its face, so the speaker can always claim they meant only the harmless meaning — while the second meaning is clear to anyone listening for it. That deniability is part of the device's mischief.

Why writers use it

The double entendre lets a writer say the unsayable. Under censorship or strict social codes, it smuggles forbidden content — sexual, political, satirical — past the guardians by hiding it in plain sight. Shakespeare's plays are dense with bawdy double meanings that his audience caught instantly and the authorities could not officially object to.

Double entendre vs. pun

The two overlap. A pun is any play on words exploiting multiple meanings or similar sounds, usually for wit or comedy. A double entendre is a specific kind of pun in which the second meaning is hidden and typically suggestive. Every double entendre is a play on meaning; not every pun has a sly second sense.

How to read it

Watch for lines that seem oddly emphasised or strangely phrased for their innocent meaning — that friction often signals a second sense at work. Recovering the hidden meaning frequently unlocks a scene's real comedy, tension, or critique.

Try Lexio

Look up any word like this — in any book, in any browser.

Lexio is a free Chrome extension and web app that reads a word's actual context and tells you what it means in this sentence, not from a generic dictionary.

Try Lexio — free →