Double Meaning Title / Literature

• The title of Arc of a Scythe refers to both the arched shape of a scythe's blade and the developmental arcs the titular scythedom, the universe's Murder, Inc. which, to save the human race from overpopulation, must kill people permanently in world where permanent death is (almost) eradicated, must go through.
• The title of The Alexander Inheritance, a Eric Flint novel refers to both the novel taking place in the aftermath of Alexander the Great's death and the settling of his empire, as well as a previous time displacement from the novel Time Spike (which is references in this book) involving the Alexander Correctional Institute.
• All Quiet on the Western Front's German title, Im Westen nichts Neues, means "Nothing New in the West". Like the English translation, this is the report given by the papers and military on the day the protagonist dies, but it also refers to the constant cycle and futile nature of war.
• Every book in the Arkady Renko series of mystery novels, written by Martin Cruz Smith, beginning with Gorky Park, have titles that first clearly reference one thing, then towards the climax of the book are revealed to refer to something much more important. Titles include Gorky Park, Polar Star, Red Square, Havana Bay, and Wolves Eat Dogs.
• Isaac Asimov's "The Watery Place": The aliens in this story said "the watery place", meaning Venus. Unfortunately, the Sheriff thinks the aliens are from Italy, so when they said "the watery place", he thought they meant Venice. The title can refer to either one, and the whole plot was a joke at the similarity in sound/description between Venus and Venice.
• The A to Z Mysteries book The Orange Outlaw has the meanings "the outlaw that has orange hair" and "the outlaw who stole oranges". The outlaw is a trained monkey who steals a painting and leaves a big mess of orange peels because of its enormous appetite.
  • Earlier in the series was "The Bald Bandit". This can refer either to Lucky O'Leary, who filmed a bank robbery and later shaved his head so the robber wouldn't recognize him,or the robber himself, who is naturally bald and wore a wig and fake mustache as part of his disguise as a private detective.
• The Baroque Cycle:
  • The Baroque Cycle as a whole is not only set in the Baroque era but also exceedingly complex.
  • The first book is called Quicksilver. Two of the recurring topics of the series are the element mercury (i.e., quicksilver) in chemistry and alchemy, and the birth of the modern economic system in which money (i.e., silver) can flow quickly from place to place.
  • The Confusion is not only about the confusion of metals (in the alchemical sense) and the confusion of messages (in the cryptography sense), or even a certain amount of confusion in the modern "what's going on?" sense, but the Author's Note explains that the book's structure (alternate chapters of parallel narratives) is an alchemical confusion as well.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's Between Planets, a portion of the story takes place on an interplanetary space ship traveling from Earth to Venus, that is "Between Planets". However, the protagonist was born in space when his parents were on a previous voyage from Earth to Mars leaving him to consider himself a citizen of the Solar System. With the Earth/Venus conflict, he wanted to remain neutral because he was "Between Planets" and had been on his way back to Mars when the Venusian Rebels seized the space station that was the transfer point to interplanetary craft.
• Stephen King's The Body was published in Different Seasons, which is a collection of four novellas, each themed after one of the four seasons and with a different subtitle based on that season. The Body's subtitle is Fall from Innocence, referring to "fall" as in a huge decline, but also as in the season, autumn.
• Bridge of Clay: as the author himself writes in the foreword, "clay" is both a type of soil and the name of one of the characters, Clay (short for Clayton).
• The Brother Cadfael novel The Rose Rent; a widow donates her property to the Abbey at Shrewsbury, in return for a single white rose to be delivered to her once every year as rent for the property. Later, Niall, a bronze-smith sent to deliver the rose, is found dead, and the white rose bush is rent - that is, hacked at its bole.
• The Camp Half-Blood Series: In The Lost Hero, Percy has gone missing and since he was The Hero of the last series, it seems like the title might apply to him. By the end of the book, the same can be said for Jason.
• Orson Scott Card's Children of the Mind. Ender joins the Catholic religious order known as the Filhos da Mente de Cristo in Portuguese — in English, it's the Children of the Mind of Christ. But two of the other main characters in that book, Peter and Val Wiggin, were accidentally created from Ender's memories when he went outside the universe — they're the Children of the Mind of Ender.
• The sixth (and at the time final) book of The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness is titled Ghost Hunter, referring both to Torak searching for the ghostlike Eostra (as the first six titles all refer to roles he takes) and to Eostra herself, who can raise the dead. A third meaning is name-dropped in the text by Krukoslik, who refers to Wolf (and wolves in general) as ghost hunters due to how silently they track their prey.
• Ciem: Vigilante Centipede has a planned sequel dubbed Nuclear Crisis, which both refers to Capp Aard stealing a radioactive blue rock called the Ming-Yo from China; and to Candi's struggles with keeping her growing family safe. Especially since she's pregnant and has the flu, her new husband has cancer, her sister is pregnant and engaged to a treasure hunter, and her sister is on the run from spies and a Government Conspiracy. And she plans to adopt a 3-year-old.
• In the poem "The Collar" by George Herbert, the title can be taken to refer to either a priest's collar or a slave's collar. Since the text poem consists of someone crying out (i.e., they're a caller) in anger (i.e., choler), it's also a Pun-Based Title.
• Crazy Rich Asians uses some Ambiguous Syntax to create the double meaning of either "Asians who are extremely wealthy" or "wealthy Asians who act bizarrely". Both definitions are applicable to the story.
• Dave Barry Slept Here has "Chapter Eleven: The Nation Enters Chapter Eleven".
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days: The subtitle refers to the summer setting, but also the Heffley's adopting a dog.
• Discworld:
  • The title of Soul Music refers to both the actual genre of music and the fact that, in the book, the music literally gets into people's souls.
  • The Fifth Elephant refers to an old legend about a fifth elephant that used to support the Disc, but which slipped off and crashed down on the flat world in the distant past. It's also an Uberwaldian expression (derived from said myth) that can variously mean "that which does not exist," "that which is not what it seems," and "that which while unseen controls events." All of these interpretations come into play over the course of the novel. In addition, it's a pun on quintessence, the "fifth element."
  • Monstrous Regiment refers both to the 'monstrous' nature of the regiment to which the main character belongs (which includes a vampire, a troll, and an Igor) and the main twist, though only to those who've read the rather obscure political work The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women
  • The title of Thud! refers to both the Variant Chess played in the series and the opening line—onomatopoeia for being hit by a club. Both are important plot points and the opposite of each other, representing the violent and peaceful solutions for the Fantastic Racism between dwarves and trolls.
  • Going Postal refers both to going insane and delivering mail.
  • Making Money refers to producing currency and to getting rich.
  • Snuff refers to murder and tobacco.
  • Wyrd Sisters is most obviously a reference to the three witches from Macbeth, which highlights the many Shakesperian allusions in the story and the main characters. While 'wyrd' is an old fashioned spelling of 'weird', it can also be pronounced as 'word': the main theme of the book is the power of words and stories.
  • A Hat Full of Sky:
    • The title of Chapter 3 is "A Single-Minded Lady". It means that Miss Level is a determined woman, which is true, but also refers to the fact that despite having two bodies, she is of a single mind, or is only one person.
    • The title of Chapter 7 is "The Matter of Brian". You'd think it means "the topic of Brian", but after you've finished the chapter and read about Hiver!Tiffany transmogrifying Brian into a frog, then explaining to his employer that a pink balloon appeared in the room because his remaining matter had to become something, you realize that, unfortunately for him, it also means "the part of Brian which occupies space and possesses mass".
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
  • The title of the Doctor Who New Adventures/Sherlock Holmes crossover The All-Consuming Fire is chosen by Watson quite early in the book as a reference to a horrific case of Spontaneous Human Combustion. However, much later there's another Title Drop, when the villain refers to his army as an all-consuming fire, sweeping across the planet.
  • In-universe example: Adventurer Archaeologist and Hard-Drinking Party Girl Professor Bernice Summerfield's memoirs are entitled Down Among the Dead Men. While this could describe excavating a tomb, the song the phrase comes from is actually referring to lying under the table, surrounded by empty bottles.
• The Drawing of the Dark sounds like a story about dark forces drawing near—and it is—but mainly, the title refers to drawing a tankard of dark beer. Magical dark beer. Beer that will restore the Fisher King and save the West.
• Most of the titles endemic in The Dresden Files. The only exceptions are Changes, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and Death Masks, where the title doesn't have much to do with the story (it was originally going to be called Holy Sheet, which does follow the pattern). For instance:
  • Grave Peril features Harry in... well, grave peril, mostly due to vampires and ghosts^note Don't Explain the Joke Grave, get it?.
  • Summer Knight begins with the murder of the Summer Knight, happens on summer nights, and is about fairies.
  • Dead Beat in particular is a triple-loaded title: a deadbeat, as in a poor guy, dead beat, as in very tired, a dead beat, as in a cop's beat that is either slow or deadly, and a dead beat, as in the rhythm that the dead move to.
• The Eagle Tree: "Holy Trinity" refers to three things: the theological concept, which is the subject of a sermon at March's church; the three components of lichen; and the new genus of lichen that March discovers and gets to name.
• Ian McEwan's Enduring Love could just mean a love that lasts (most people just assume this is the meaning), but it has a second meaning: tolerating love or putting up with love.
• The Ming-period Chinese classic Fengshen Yanyi, usually translated as the "Investiture of the Gods", has one in the title word "Fenghshen": the fantastic side of the story has the hero, Jiang Ziya, being tasked by the head honcho of Chan Taoism Yuanshi Tianzun with finding and promoting 365 notable immortals and heroes to deities. In order to do so, he builds a massive altar structure where the souls of said notable people are gathered, waiting for their promotion to deities. Fengshen can either be read as "Sealing Spirits" (as in, souls) and as "Bestowing Divinity", the final purpose of Jiang Ziya's task.
• Michael Chabon came up with a particularly dark one when he wrote a novella about an 80-something Sherlock Holmes helping a young boy. It was effectively a spiritual successor to Doyle's story The Final Problem, with the added detail that the boy was a Jewish Holocaust escapee. The title: The Final Solution.
• James Joyce deliberately did not put an apostrophe in the title of Finnegans Wake to create a double meaning. It can be read in (at least) two different ways, either it is the wake of Finnegan or multiple Finnegans wake up.
• Gaunt's Ghosts: In addition to both the name of the first novel and regiment name, Tanith First and Only, it also referrers to Ibhram Gaunt is the first and only son to his father.
• The original Norwegian title of Alexander Kielland's Gift can be translated into either "poison" or "married". The former refers to how the students are "poisoned" by rote learning of topics unrelated to real life and societal norms. The latter is less important, but one character is stuck in a marriage and in love with another man.
• All of the titles in the Girls of Many Lands have a dual meaning: they sound poetic to evoke the mood of the cultural setting and are all literally present and important to the character of the book in some way.
• Gone Girl. The character of Amy has disappeared and is presumed to be dead. Also, as far as her mental state is concerned, she's completely gone.
• Halting State: A "halting state" is the condition of a computer that has reached the end of its programming and will do nothing until it gets further instructions (or that it's stuck on the same spot). Appropriate for a novel about the software-saturated world, but it also refers to bringing a nation state to a standstill.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Played With. Deathly Hallows is translated as "The Relics of Death" in many languages, which turns the title into this trope. A reader would initially think said relics are Voldemort's Horcruxes (which allow him to cheat death) especially since some of them are very culturally-valued relics in the wizarding world — such as those that belonged to Hogwarts' Founders. It doesn't help that the most common interpretation of the adverb "deathly" is that of "lethal", something that the Horcruxes are in spades because of the traps that surround them and/or their possession and The Corrupter potential. However, it's later revealed this installment is a case of a MacGuffin Title, because the Deathly Hallows do exist and have very little to do with Horcruxes.
• The title High Fidelity refers both to record albums (it's what "hi-fi" is short for, if you didn't know) and to commitment in romantic relationships.
• Hollow Kingdom (2019): "Hollow Kingdom" refers both to the world that the Hollows (humans) built and how hollow said world feels in the wake of their inhabitants getting zombified.
• Isaac Asimov's "Hostess": The title refers to Dr Rose Smollett, whose third-person perspective forms the basis of this story. The word "host" (or the feminine form, "hostess") refers to someone who is responsible for supplying hospitality to a visitor, or to an organism in which a parasite or commensal organism lives. She is currently hosting Dr Tholan, and all humans are host to a race of parasitic creatures with no physical form.
• Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: The title appears at first to refer to the malevolent A.I. of the story, AM, who annihilated all of humanity save for five torture subjects out of HATE that they could feel and wander and wonder while it was trapped underground in a "straightjacket of substrata rock" for their benefit. The twist ending is probably the first thing you ever found out about this story, but in case you're hearing it here first, AM turns the last survivor, Ted, into a big, soft, jelly thing and the experience is apparently so horrific that he gives us the Title Drop as the final sentence of the story and second meaning of the title. Indeed, AM literally has no mouth - only capable of communicating through telepathy - so it's implied it intended this to be a Karmic Transformation for Ted.
• I'm Thinking of Ending Things could refer to the relationship between Jake and the young woman, which she finds unhappy, or Jake's own life, which ends at the end of the novel.
• Peter Davison's autobiography Is There Life Outside the Box? The title clearly refers to having a life outside his television career, but is "the box" the TV or the TARDIS?
• Long for This World refers both to Immortality and the desire for it.
• All three books of Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit for Heroes trilogy. The Steel Remains, The Cold Commands and The Dark Defiles can be interpreted as adjective plus noun ("the remains made out of steel") or noun plus verb ("the steel that remains"). And in all three cases both interpretations make sense within the context of the book.
• Lockwood & Co.:
  • The Hollow Boy refers both to a ghost encountered in the book and to Lockwood’s feeling of inner emptiness following his family’s deaths.
  • The Empty Grave is the Fittes mausoleum and also Lockwood’s yet-to-be-filled grave at his family’s plot.
• The Lord of the Rings refers both to Sauron, that heavy and evil menace always present in the background and the hero's mind throughout all the Book, but also to the hypothetical Master of the One Ring. "The Lord of the Rings" is an idea of what you could become if you can master it, and it is the temptation that the hero must resist if he is to conquer. In that sense it can represent Frodo or Gandalf or Aragorn or Saruman or Boromir or Galadriel or Sam or anyone really.
  • It can also refer to The One Ring itself, forged to be the master of all the other rings.
  • The title of the second part, The Two Towers, can refer to the unholy alliance between Orthanc and Barad-dûr (this meaning was used for a Title Drop in the film); the opposition of the White Tower of Minas Tirith and The Dark Tower of Barad-dûr; or the fact that the plot of each half builds to a climax at Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol (or arguably Minas Morgul) respectively.
• In Louise Loves Art, a childrens' picture book by Kelly Light, the protagonist is is a budding illustrator named Louise who loves two things: drawing, and her little brother Art.
• The second of Mark Gatiss' Lucifer Box novels is called The Devil in Amber. The most obvious reference is to the rising fascist leader who dresses himself and his army in amber shirts, but once his Evil Plan is revealed, it becomes a reference to a literal devil sealed away (i.e. preserved "in amber", like the mosquito in Jurassic Park) until its summoning rite is performed.
• The Man Who Fell to Earth refers to both the Alien Among Us hero's physical arrival on Earth and his metaphorical falling to the vices and treacheries of humanity.
• Market of Monsters: The trilogy centers around the illicit black market trade of "unnatural" humans and their body parts. It's a market that sells "monsters," but since Humans Are the Real Monsters, it's more accurately a market run by and belonging to monsters.
• Middlesex refers not only to Cal's intersex condition, but also to the street where she spent her late childhood and adolescence.
• Misery refers to the main character of Paul Sheldon's flagship cheesy romance novel series, Misery Chastain, and the misery he faces when he is injured in a car crash and taken under the care of Loony Fan Annie Wilkes, who finds out that he plans to kill Misery off in his next book and decides to pull a Saved by the Fans... with painful consequences for Paul if he at any point refuses to go along.
• In Hal Clement's novel Mission of Gravity, a probe was landed on an a massive planet, to study gravity. When the probe's launch failed, recovering the data becomes a mission of importance.
• Newshound is one of these, since the word is a slang term for a journalist, as well as a literal pun on the main character, Heather Stone, who is a werewolf journalist.
• Noob:
  • The title of the first chapter of the third novel can be loosely translated from the original French as "Facing Chaos alone". It gets a Title Drop as the title of an old article about Fantöm's victory against the Source of Chaos, but is also quite appropriate for the reason for which that chapter is a Downer Beginning.
  • A chapter from the fourth novel is titled "Double jeu", which can mean both Double Play and Playing Both Sides. Given it focuses on a player that has two active avatars in different factions, both interpretations are appropriate.
• Julie Orringer's short story "Pilgrims" takes place on Thanksgiving Day, and it involves an awkward Thanksgiving dinner that's likened to a feast between "Pilgrims and Indians". Said dinner also happens to take place on a New Age commune for cancer patients, where the adults in attendance are literal pilgrims (that is, people on a religious journey of healing and self-discovery).
• Not Star Trek, but Star Trek-related: A book of poetry and prose written by an Assistant Director while working on Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise is named Poetry and Prose from the Director's Ass. Given a lot of the jobs an Assistant Director does, the title is fitting...
• The novel (and musical) Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow takes place during the heyday of ragtime music, and one of the lead characters is a ragtime performer; but the title also refers to the persistent poverty among the underprivileged classes of that era—it was "rag time".
• Ian Rankin has a lot of these. The Rebus novel Fleshmarket Close, for instance, starts out in the Edinburgh street of the same name (so called because it used to be a butcher's market), but goes on to be about two different "fleshmarkets"; prostitution and trade in illegal immigrants.
• The Secret Barrister, by the anonymous legal blogger of that pseudonym, has the subtitle Stories of the Law and How It's Broken. While the stories do feature people breaking the law, the main point of the book is questioning whether the legal system is fit for purpose; the law itself is broken.
• The title of Small World (Tabitha King novel) reflects both the miniaturized world inside the Doll's White House and the myriad of connections that link all the characters (i.e., a world in which everyone knows everyone in some way).
• The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps: "Sorcerer" is not just Demane's nickname among the brothers, the jukiere haunting the Wildeeps is also a kind of animalistic, necromantic sorcerer in the form of a tiger. Additionally, in the end of the book Demane has to remain in the Wildeeps until he manages to kill the other jukiere within the jungle as well, effectively making him the Sorcerer of the Wildeeps.
• Star Trek Expanded Universe:
  • The Diane Duane TOS novel Doctor's Orders, in which Dr. McCoy is left in command of the Enterprise, the double meaning being that McCoy is a doctor and in command (thus giving orders), and the phrase "doctor's orders" which describes a doctor's instructions to his patients.
  • Star Trek Novelverse:
    • Star Trek: Mirror Universe:
      • The short story "Empathy", featuring the Mirror Universe versions of the Titan crew. The title refers to the gestalt between the lifeforms of Lru-Irr, which the Alliance wants to exploit. It also refers to Ian Troi and Tuvok's determination to save the Irriol from the Alliance, as well as Bajoran scientist Jaza Najem's own increasing empathy for the Irriol, combined with the love he shares with Terran slave Christine Vale. Perhaps more of a stretch, one of Troi's crew, the sociopathic William Riker, notably lacks any sort of empathy, possibly because he never met his captain's daughter.
      • The two collections are titled Glass Empires and Obsidian Alliances. Obviously this refers to the Terran Empire in the 23rd century and the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in the 24th, associating them both reflective materials because it's the mirror universe. But glass is also famously fragile, just like the Empire proves to be, and obsidian suggests Cardassia's Obsidian Order, which also exists within the Alliance.
    • The Star Trek: Titan novel Orion's Hounds. Orion refers both to the constellation of the hunter, and to the galaxy's Orion arm. The Pa'haquel race, who hunt spacefaring lifeforms across the Orion Arm, are the eponymous hounds in two senses.
    • The Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel Zero Sum Game refers not only to the obvious meaning but also to a cold war scenario and to the Breen civilization, who are famed for liking the cold. The novel revolves around a cat-and-mouse game between Starfleet and the Breen while Breen scientists try to reverse-engineer stolen Federation technology.
    • The Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations novel Watching the Clock refers both to the DTI's role in protecting and monitoring the timeline, and to the mundane nature of its agents, who are most certainly not Starfleet-style adventurers. The DTI know that if they're having an adventure, they've already screwed up, and it's going to pay hell with the paperwork. No, they're 9-to-5 government employees, and like to keep things as unchaotic and, ideally, dull, as possible.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Timothy Zahn likes these.
    • The Thrawn Trilogy: Heir to the Empire could refer to the New Republic which has risen as the Empire fell or to Grand Admiral Thrawn, who has returned from a long absence to take up the Empire's remains. Or to C'baoth. Dark Force Rising may be the Katana fleet, the Dark Side of the Force, or Thrawn's Empire. The Last Command might be Palpatine's final command to his Hand, or another reference to Thrawn.
    • Hand of Thrawn duology: "Hand of Thrawn" itself could be the influence he has even after his death, the dissidents impersonating him, and the various things related to that fortress on Niruan. Specter of the Past is, obviously, referring to Thrawn, but also to the pasts of the other characters that affect them still, and on a meta note, Zahn's unhappiness about what other authors did to his characters. Vision of the Future is more straightforward, but you could make a case for it being Luke's vision, the things the Empire of the Hand are preparing for, and the future of the Star Wars Expanded Universe itself.
    • "Mist Encounter" can be seen as the meeting of the exiled Thrawn and Imperial forces on the misty world of his exile, or the pun "Missed encounter" — the Imperial forces are there to chase Booster Terrick, who took cover and were ignored for the events transpiring around him. "Command Decision" can be the decision made by the ranking officer — Thrawn — or the decision his subordinates, not understanding his rather unorthodox and possibly traitorous orders, come to regarding whether he is fit for command. "Judge's Call" can be about how Luke clearly felt called to arbitrate, or about how he called for that private time with his wife.
  • Just in general, a number of Legends books have titles like this.
    • Rogue Squadron refers to both the name of the New Republic's best starfighter squadron and their unpredictable, not-by-the-book attitude. Wedge's Gamble encompasses the missions that Wedge and the Rogues head off on and the absolute, unwavering trust he has for possible Manchurian Agent Tycho Celchu. The Krytos Trap? That's the two ways that the Krytos plague "traps" the New Republic; killing non-humans and being part of a ploy to turn them against the human members. Solo Command is the taskforce under the command of General Solo and Wraith Squadron coming under the command of Face Loran.
    • In the Coruscant Nights Trilogy, one book is Patterns of Force. In that title, Force means what it usually means in Star Wars as well as what it means everywhere else.
    • A storm does approach in The Approaching Storm, which also refers to the enemies who attack and, conceivably, the slight wrongness of Anakin Skywalker.
• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character — Richard Feynman was a curious character in two senses of the term — a rather strange character, who was curious about everything.
• A Taste of Honey: Honey, being a sticky liquid, is often associated with eroticism, with 'a taste of honey' implying a short, sweet moment of pleasure, just as the short time Aqib and Lucrio can share their love in the story. A taste of honey in the literal sense is also what the Sybil demands of Aqib in the end as payment for her service. He has to smear his hand in honey and let her gnaw it off. The hand, not just the honey.
• Thin Air by Richard K. Morgan. As in "vanish into thin air" and "low air pressure at great heights".
• Warhammer 40,000: Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel His Last Command has multiple Title Drops to both meanings: "the last unit he commanded" and "the last order he gave."
• War and Peace: Its title in the original Russian is Voyna i mir. 'Mir' means peace, but also 'the world' so the possible translation is War and the World.
• Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, true to its name, is definitely the weirdest of the three books, but the title also refers to the baby girl Mrs. Jewls gives birth to at the end of the book, the eponymous "little stranger".
• Whateley Universe: Catgirl Madness: The events, "madness", about a catgirl? And also the (false) diagnosis of schizophrenia that catgirl gets.
• Wind and Shadow refers to the main female character, Wind Haworth, and the main antagonist, who is a Shadow^note a being Made of Evil, as well as to the book's thematic elements: the ability of people to heal or to harm (wind, which can be beneficial or devastating) and spiritual darkness and temptation (shadow).
• The Wings of Fire book series has this in book 3, The Hidden Kingdom, which both can refer to the kingdom of the RainWings, hidden in the rainforest, and the secret home of the NightWings, a volcanic island that nobody but the NightWings themselves knows about. Book 4, The Dark Secret, also has this, as it details the NightWings' plans to invade the rainforest and wipe out the RainWings, while also revealing that the prophecy that's been the driving force behind the narrative isn't even real.
• Wylder's Hand has a triple meaning: It could refer to Mark Wylder's hand in marriage, his handwriting, or the body part. All three are relevant to the plot at some point.
• The Yiddish Policemen's Union: The actual Yiddish Policemen's Union (i.e. the police union whose card Landsman carries) is largely irrelevant to the plot of the book, which is at least partially about the union (or more accurately reunion) between Landsman and his ex-wife, both Yiddish police officers.

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