onomatopoeia
noun
Christian Marclay 
Did you know?
Onomatopoeia came into English via Late Latin and ultimately traces back to Greek onoma, meaning "name," and poiein, meaning "to make." (Onoma can be found in such terms as onomastics, which refers to the study of proper names and their origins, while poiein gave us such words as poem and poet.) English speakers have only used the word onomatopoeia since the mid-1500s, but people have been creating words from the sounds heard around them for much longer. In fact, the presence of so many imitative words in language spawned the linguistic bowwow theory, which postulates that language originated in imitation of natural sounds.
Example Sentences
Fred Cicetti, Montague Reporter, 6 Mar. 2008 You might think it was an onomatopoeia of the sound a Frisbee makes as it moves through the air, but the name has been attributed for years to the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Conn., which went out of business in 1958. Mark Danna, Sports Illustrated, 11 May 1987 Buzz and hiss are examples of onomatopoeia. Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 28 July 2022 Hori horis originated in Japan and its name is the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of digging in the dirt. Leanne Potts, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Dec. 2021 Reading his writing can be kind of like taking a psychedelic — a literary onomatopoeia. Washington Post, 23 July 2021 The son remembers riding somewhere with his father as a young boy, with Wills teaching him through a ditty how to spell the word onomatopoeia, which the son can still spell 60 years later thanks to that experience. Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 23 July 2021 His names of characters are like onomatopoeia -- like Miss Trunchbull, Bruce Bogtrotter and Amanda Thripp. cleveland, 20 Nov. 2019 Praised for his exceptional lyrical vocal style and for the complex rhythmic structure of his phrasing, Maelo incorporated greetings, religious chants, onomatopoeias, popular sayings, proverbs and aphorisms into his improvisations. Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 18 Sep. 2019 This is essentially the quantification of onomatopoeia, like in the Adam West Batman series. Matt Simon, WIRED, 24 May 2018 Still another another found an appropriate onomatopoeia for the occasion. Cady Lang, Time, 16 Mar. 2018 See More Word History
Late Latin, from Greek onomatopoiia, from onomat-, onoma name + poiein to make — more at poet
circa 1553, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Kids Definition
onomatopoeia
noun