onomatopoeia

A sign in a shop window in Milan using the onomatopoeia tic tac to represent the sound of a clock

• onomatopeia, onomatopœia

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ὀνοματοποιία (onomatopoiía, “the coining of a word in imitation of a sound”), from ὀνοματοποιέω (onomatopoiéō, “to coin names”), from ὄνομα (ónoma, “name”) + ποιέω (poiéō, “to make, to do, to produce”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɒnəˌmætəˈpiːə/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˌɒnəˌmɛtəˈpæɪə/
• (US) enPR: än'ə-măt'ə-pēʹə or än'ə-mät'ə-pēʹə, IPA^(key): /ˌɑnəˌmætəˈpiːə/, /ˌɑnəˌmɑtəˈpiːə/
• (US, chiefly Midwestern) IPA^(key): /ˌɑnəˌmɑnəˈpiːə/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Audio (GB)

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• Rhymes: -iːə

onomatopoeia (countable and uncountable, plural onomatopoeias or onomatopoeiae)

1. (uncountable) The property of a word that sounds like what it represents.
   • 1553, Thomas Wilson, Desiderius Erasmus, Arte of Rhetorique‎, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1909:

     A woorde making called of the Grecians Onomatapoia, is when wee make wordes of our owne minde, such as bee derived from the nature of things.

2. (countable) A word that sounds like what it represents, such as "gurgle", "stutter", or "hiss".
   1. (countable) A word that appropriates a sound for another sensation or a perceived nature, such as "thud", "beep", or "meow"; an ideophone, phenomime.
3. (uncountable, rhetoric) The use of language whose sound imitates that which it names.

• ideophone
• Wiktionary's category of English onomatopoeias

• onomatopoeïa

From the Ancient Greek ὀνομᾰτοποιῐ́ᾱ (onomatopoiíā).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /o.no.ma.toˈpoe̯.i.a/, [ɔnɔmät̪ɔˈpoe̯iä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /o.no.ma.toˈpe.i.a/, [onomät̪oˈpɛːiä]

onomatopoeia f (genitive onomatopoeiae); first declension

1. (rhetoric) onomatopoeia (the forming of a word to resemble in sound the thing that it signifies)

First-declension noun.

• French: onomatopée
• English: onomatopoeia
• Italian: onomatopea
• Portuguese: onomatopeia
• Spanish: onomatopeya

• “ŏnŏmătŏpoeïa”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ŏnŏmătŏpœĭa in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 1,080/2.
• “onomatopoeia”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “onomatopoeia” on page 1,250/1 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)