Onomatopoetic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Describing words that imitate or resemble natural sounds in their pronunciation
2. Pertaining to linguistic terms that evoke the actual sounds they represent through phonetic likeness
3. Characterizing words whose pronunciation mirrors the natural sounds they denote

Etymology: Ancient Greek speakers had a compound for this idea: "onomatopoiia" was built from "onoma" (name, word) and "poiein" (to make), so it meant "word-making" or "name-making." The Greek noun "onomatopoios" referred to a maker of names, a sense that eventually narrowed to the imitation of sounds. Latin borrowed the Greek word as "onomatopoeia," and English took it from there. The adjective "onomatopoetic" is a later English formation, not a Greek or Roman one. It was made by adding the suffix "-ic" to the noun "onomatopoeia," the same way "poetic" comes from "poetry" with the same ending. The Greek and Latin roots are classical, but the adjective itself was coined in English, so ancient writers never used it. The source lists "onomatopoeic" as the standard form and "onomatopoetic" as its synonym, so both mean the same thing: describing words whose sounds imitate the things they name, such as "buzz" or "hiss." The "-ic" ending is what turns the noun into a description of words, which is why the adjective can describe a word rather than a sound.

Synonyms: imitative, sound-representative, echoic, phonetic, auditory

Antonyms: non-imitative, abstract, unrepresentative, silent, inaudible