onomatopoeia
noun
Christian Marclay 
Did you know?
English speakers have only used the word onomatopoeia since the 1500s, but people have been creating words inspired by the sounds heard around them for much longer. It may not surprise you to learn that fizz, jingle, toot, and pop are onomatopoeic in origin, but did you know the same is true of bounce, tinker, and blimp? Boom! Now you do. In fact, the presence of so many imitative words in language spawned the linguistic bowwow theory, which postulates that language originated in the imitating of natural sounds. While it’s highly unlikely that onomatopoeia is the sole impetus for human language, it certainly made a mark, which is nothing to sneeze at.
Examples of onomatopoeia in a Sentence
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.
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Artforum, 1 Oct. 2024
Tom Wolfe is a literary icon for many reasons, not least his white suits and liberal use of onomatopoeia.
—Seyward Darby, Longreads, 9 Jan. 2024
To see the onomatopoeias appear in tiny bursts in the grid was the goal.
—Sam Corbin, New York Times, 4 Feb. 2024
Instead of the traditional hip-hop group format of trading verses, Migos basically traded syllables, punctuating each other’s verses and flows with shouted interjections, ad-libs, onomatopoeia or just noises.
—Jem Aswad, Variety, 24 May 2023
Instead, the animal life represented here coexists peacefully in a land of idioms and the occasional onomatopoeia.
—Sam Corbin, New York Times, 30 Apr. 2023
The bullet is a grim onomatopoeia for itself.
—Adrian Matejka, New York Times, 15 July 2021
Mime and onomatopoeia were part of the drill.
—Dan Greene, The New Yorker, 24 May 2021
Thousands of fireflies, called kelip-kelip in Malaysia — their name is a sort of visual onomatopoeia for their twinkling — can settle on riverside trees.
—Joshua Sokol, Quanta Magazine, 20 Sep. 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'onomatopoeia.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Video
A Look at Uncommon Onomatopoeia
Some imitative words are more surprising than others
Dictionary Entries Near onomatopoeia
Cite this Entry
“Onomatopoeia.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/onomatopoeia. Accessed 8 Oct. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
onomatopoeia
noun
Share