Splosh

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To splash or spatter a liquid about in a messy, noisy way, often with a wet sloshing sound
2. Describing the act of spilling or flinging liquid around carelessly so that it makes a loud splashing noise
3. Moving through or dropping into liquid so that it spatters and makes a wet, slapping sound

Etymology: "Splosh" is a sound before it is a word. It is onomatopoeic, meaning it was formed to imitate the noise of liquid hitting a surface, and it grew out of a cluster of similar sound-words that include "splash" and "splish." Each of these pairs a sharp opening consonant cluster with a short vowel and a final hiss or thud, so the ear hears a heavy, messy impact in the sound itself. The verb and noun senses both follow from that noise. To splosh is to splash liquid about noisily, and a splosh is the sound or the act itself. The word sits close to "slosh," which carries a similar sense of liquid moving clumsily, so the two are often heard as relatives even though the source treats them as related words in a family of imitative forms rather than as a single borrowed pair.

Synonyms: splash, slosh, splatter, spatter