Onomatopoeia

 WORD OF THE DAY

onomatopoeia / noun / ah-nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh

Definition
1a: the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)
1b: a word formed by onomatopoeia
2: the use of words whose sound suggests the sense

Examples
“[John] Madden’s influence, steeped in Everyman sensibilities and studded with wild gesticulations and paroxysms of onomatopoeia—wham! doink! whoosh!—made the N.F.L. more interesting, more relevant and more fun for over 40 years.”
— Ben Shpigel, The New York Times, 28 Dec. 2021

Thousands of fireflies, called kelip-kelip in Malaysia — their name is a sort of visual onomatopoeia for their twinkling — can settle on riverside trees. 
—  Joshua Sokol, Quanta Magazine, 20 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
English speakers have only used the word onomatopoeia since the 1500s, but people have been creating words inspired by the sounds heard around them for much longer.
It may not surprise you to learn that fizz, jingle, toot, and pop are onomatopoeic in origin, but did you know the same is true of bounce, tinker, and blimp?
Boom! Now you do. In fact, the presence of so many imitative words in language spawned the linguistic bowwow theory, which postulates that language originated in the imitating of natural sounds.
While it’s highly unlikely that onomatopoeia is the sole impetus for human language, it certainly made a mark, which is nothing to sneeze at.