onomatopoeia

1. the formation of words whose sound is imitative of the sound of the noise or action designated, such as hiss, buzz, and bang

2. the use of such words for poetic or rhetorical effect

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Onomatopoeia

(pop culture)

The black trench coat–wearing assassin Onomatopoeia hurled onto the pages of a Kevin Smith–penned, Phil Hester and Ande Parks–illustrated story in Green Arrow vol. 3 #11 (2002). Introduced as a ninja-like murderer of third-string superheroes such as the suburban vigilante Buckeye, Onomatopoeia struck a more well-known superhero, the contemporary Green Arrow, Connor Hawke—an accomplished martial artist himself and son of the original Green Arrow, Oliver Queen. Like his name implies, Onomatopoeia's calling card is that he utters onomatopoeic words—specifically, the sound of the murder weapon he employs during the murder (“Bang!” “Crash!”)—just before killing his next victim. While he didn't quite execute Green Arrow, he did manage to hospitalize him by shooting him in the head. As Green Arrow's arch-nemesis—and by extension, his father's, as the two Emerald Archers fight crime together in Star City—little is known about this evasive, verbally limited supervillain. His face concealed behind a black mask with concentric bull's-eye markings, Onomatopoeia has superpowers that mimic a super–serial killer. He is adept at using guns, swords, knives, and other weaponry, and even goes to such extremes as to bite weapons in two! With behavior that borders on psychotic, the mysterious Onomatopoeia might find a welcome home in the bleaker post–Infinite Crisis (2005–2006) DC Universe.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Onomatopoeia

in linguistics, sound-imitative words that develop out of a phonetic similarity to combinations of nonverbal sounds—for example, Russian miaukat’, “to meow” (from miau, “meow”). The term “onomatopoeia” also refers to the method by which sound-imitative words are formed, as well as to a particular type of onomatopoeic, or reduplicative, word. Often, “onomatopoeia” designates the conventional verbal imitation of the sound associated with a living or nonliving thing (ku-ku, “cuckoo”; bum-bum, “boom-boom”; a devitsa—khi-khi-khi! da kha-kha-kha! “And the girl goes ‘Hee, hee, hee!’ and ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ “). Onomatopoeia is used in poetry to create an image based on sound:

Budu akat’, budu okat’,
Kapliu-step’ voz’mu pod lokot’,
Kon’ poidet podkovoi tsokat’,
Ekat’ selezenkoiu. (A. Tarkovskii)

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References in periodicals archive

The BFC's visit is a great opportunity to promote companies to international clients Sam Auguste, MD, Onomatopoeia Post

City showcased to US TV executives

The frequent use of word initial #p, reduplication and the often co-existing particle characterize Japanese onomatopoeia (Jorden, 1982).

Musicality and onomatopoeia use in Miyazawa Kenji's short stories

And he presents this cast through their thoughts, punctuated by bursts of pure onomatopoeia - as Nestor's boat goes SMACK on the water and the music in the strip club goes BEAT thung.

Books

While stories like "The Centaur" or "Revenge" could be described as Katkaesque, other stories, such as "The Chair" and "Embargo" not only offer early signs of Saramago's trademark political allegories but also give us a glimpse into the satiric voice we've come to associate with a man who has been hailed as one of the world's great novelists: "If they were to say the same thing, if they were to group together through affinity of structure and origin, then life would be much simpler, by means of successive reduction, down to onomatopoeia which is not simple either." Although Saramago's idiosyncratic style is clearly on display in these early stories, he has not quite perfected the power of the comma evident in his later work.

Jose Saramago. The Lives of Things

Thirdly, general readers would be likely to be interested in both the etymology and word-formation history of the words (the latter being particularly striking due to the onomatopoeia so prevalent in the names of animals).

A Guide to Scots Bird Names

Ask, ask, ask is onomatopoeia, the "siss" of the question steams the creases from the guard's handsome uniform.

Querent

Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects.

Book review: Geet captures it best, says it all -by Dr Amjad Parvez

"The best lyrics have sophisticated internal rhymes, use onomatopoeia for percussive effect and can spin the emotional intensity of a verse or the meaning of a story on a single word," she said.

Tragedy of the real turf war

One of Joyce's kinesthetic strategies, particularly evident in "Proteus," attempts to make language mimetic of human movement in the way that onomatopoeia suggests words may sound like what they mean.

Joyce's reading bodies and the kinesthetics of the modernist novel

This is my light, alive in you." This book begs to be read aloud, with questions before page turns, fun use of onomatopoeia and gorgeous gouache illustrations.--J.R.P.

Eco bedtime stories