Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more. Noises that make their own names — like pop, sizzle, bang and whoosh — are examples of ...

Word of the day: Onomatopoeia means a word that imitates real sound. Words like buzz, crash, boom, and whisper copy natural noise. Writers use this literary device to create sound imagery and stronger ...

Over the centuries, linguists have put forward dozens of different theories attempting to explain how human speech—developed long before written language ever appeared—first came into existence. One ...

"The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named" is the New Oxford American Dictionary's definition of "onomatopoeia" (Ah-Nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh). An odd word, onomatopoeia, and one ...

Today's word of the day: Onomatopoeia refers to words that imitate natural sounds, from buzz to clang. This Word of the Day explores its Greek roots, role in storytelling, and how sound-based words ...

Humans couldn't be satisfied with spelling out only things they say. They also needed to spell out the sounds around them. Giving a name to a sound is called "onomatopoeia." The word is difficult to ...

In addition to being one of the most fun words to say—and hardest to spell—in English, “onomatopoeia” probably calls to mind a whole bunch of silly, fun words. Onomatopoeia is the process of creating ...

Most people know what onomatopoeia is, but I’d bet most of them couldn’t spell it! Just ask me. Onomatopoeia, of course, is the naming of a thing based on the sound it makes. I can’t think of a better ...

The naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of its sound (“buzz,” “splash,” “zap”) is called “onomatopoeia.” Last summer, I asked readers to invent a general term for “UN-onomatopoeia” – ...