ONOMATOPOEIA • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Onomatopoeia

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Onomatopoeia

noun

Using words that imitate the sound they denote.

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Etymology of 'Onomatopoeia'

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"Onomatopoeia" Quotes from Famous Books

... with an erroneous apprehension of their meaning; this was particularly the case with pronouns—"dein Bett," for example, being supposed to mean "das grosse Bett." All words which were spontaneously acquired seemed to be instances of onomatopoeia. Adverbs were first used in the twenty-seventh month, and now also words which had previously been used to express a variety of associated or generic meanings, were discarded for more specific ones. In the twenty-eighth month prepositions were first used, and questions were ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... chooses to go into details of technic) he seems curiously without that use of the broad vowels which underlies the melody of so many great passages of English poetry. Except in the one remarkable instance of 'How we Carried the Good News from Ghent to Aix,' there is little onomatopoeia, and almost no note of the flute; no "moan of doves in immemorial elms" or "lucent sirops tinct with cinnamon." On the other hand, in his management of metres like that of 'Love Among the Ruins,' for instance, ...

— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

Words linked to "Onomatopoeia" : onomatopoetic, rhetorical device, onomatopoeical