While wordplay is typically considered to be humorous, this paper intends to present its multifunctionality: wordplay can be an instrument of humour production but is not always used for this purpose. Taking this assumption as a basis, the article shows that there is a formal and functional difference between wordplay and the pun as its subcategory. This assumption can be converted into the formula wordplay ≥ pun (“каламбур”). Verifying this formula, the study gives numerous Russian and Hungarian examples from various “genres”.