Saturday 14 August 2010

A-Z: ONOMATOPOEIA




An onomatopoeia or onomatopœia (from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία; ὄνομα for "name" and ποιέω for "I make") (adjectival form: "onomatopoeic" or "onomatopoetic") is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Onomatopoeia (as an uncountable noun) refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises, such as "oink" or "meow" or "roar". Onomatopoeias are not universally the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to the broader linguistic system they are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be tick tock in English, dī dā in Mandarin, or katchin katchin in Japanese.

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