An
onomatopoeia (, or chiefly
NZ ; from the
Greek ὀνοματοποιία; ὄνομα for "name" and ποιέω for "I make",
adjectival form: "onomatopoeic" or "onomatopoetic") is a
word that
phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.
Onomatopoeia (as an
uncountable noun) refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises such as "oink", "miaow" (or "meow"), "roar" or "chirp". Onomatopoeias are not the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to the broader
linguistic system they are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be
tick tock in
English,
dī dā in
Mandarin, or
katchin katchin in
Japanese, or "tik-tik" (टिक-टिक) in
Hindi.