Onomatopoeia is the use of a word that imitates or is intended to
sound like what it describes. We use onomatopoeia all the time; the
words we use to describe the sounds of animals are among them.
Here are a few examples of onomatopoeia:
bang, beep, bong, bow-wow, boom, buzz, chirp, choo-choo, clank, click,
cluck, creak, croak, crunch, cuckoo, drip, gobble-gobble, growl,
hiccup, hiss, hoot, jingle, meow, moo, murmur, oom-pah-pah, plop, pop,
quack, ribbit, slurp, smash, sniff, ticktock, tinkle, toot, twang,
whump, yackety-yak, yelp, zap, zzzz
One thing that's interesting is that the onomatopoeic words aren't the
same in all languages. For example, in English a dog says bow-wow
(among other things), but in Spanish it's guau-guau (among other
things).
Here are some other references for you:
Onomatopoeia
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=onomatopoeia
Sounds of the World's Animals
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/animals/
Literary Special Effects
http://www.lovetolearnplace.com/Curriculum/Literary/Onomatopoeia.html
Onomatopoeia
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/onomat.htm
Weird Words
http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-ono1.htm
I hope this fully answers your question.
Sincerely,
Mvguy-ga
Google term used: onomatopoeia
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