punstern.

1699 W. King Dialogues of Dead 28 Etymologies may indeed furnish Materials for Quiblers, Punsters, and Conundrum-Makers.

1700 W. Congreve Way of World v. i. 77 To be a Theme for legal Punsters, and Quiblers by the Statute..to discompose the gravity of the Bench.

1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 61. ¶2 That learned Monarch [sc. James I] was himself a tolerable Punnster.

1771 C. Powys Passages from Diaries Mrs. Powys (1899) 141 One could hardly have found a more crabbed word to exercise the punster's faculty.

1855 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. xiv. 471 [Jane, the King's Professor of Divinity] was so unfortunate as to have a name which was an excellent mark for the learned punsters of his University. Several epigrams were written on the double-faced Janus.

1883 Harper's Mag. July 175/1 It is to be lamented that so good and learned a man was an incorrigible punster.

1965 W. S. Allen Vox Latina 107 In the sixteenth century we find punsters identifying e.g. habitaculum with French habit à cul long.

1992 N.Y. Times 16 Feb. 36/3 To fashion the orthographic jungle gym that is a crossword puzzle, one must have the talents of a poet and punster.