onomatopoeia

onomatopoeia is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 1 sense, and appears in Roget's Thesaurus (1911) with 40 related terms. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.The formation of words in imitation of sounds; a figure of speech in which the sound of a word is imitative of the sound of the thing which the word represents; as, the buzz of bees; the hiss of a goose; the crackle of fire. Note: It has been maintained by some philologist that all primary words, especially names, were formed by imitation of natural sounds.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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