Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia, pronounced on-uh-mat-uh–pee–uh, is defined as a word which imitates the natural

sounds of a thing. It creates a sound effect that mimics the thing described, making the description more
expressive and interesting.

Function of Onomatopoeia
Generally, words are used to tell what is happening. Onomatopoeia, on the other hand, helps
readers to hear the sounds of the words they reflect. Hence, the reader cannot help but enter
the world created by the poet with the aid of these words. The beauty of onomatopoeic words
lies in the fact that they are bound to have an effect on the readers’ senses, whether that effect
is understood or not. Moreover, a simple plain expression does not have the same emphatic
effect that conveys an idea powerfully to the readers. The use of onomatopoeic words helps
create emphasis.
Common Examples of Onomatopoeia

As noted above, almost all animal noises are examples of onomatopoeia. There are hundreds of other
onomatopoeia examples in the English language, however. Here are some categories of words, along
with examples of each:

 Machine noises—honk, beep, vroom, clang, zap, boing

 Animal names—cuckoo, whip-poor-will, whooping crane, chickadee

 Impact sounds—boom, crash, whack, thump, bang

 Sounds of the voice—shush, giggle, growl, whine, murmur, blurt, whisper, hiss

 Nature sounds—splash, drip, spray, whoosh, buzz, rustle

There is a tradition in comic books of using onomatopoeias during fight scenes. These words, such as
“wham,” “pow,” and “biff,” often accompany an image of a character knocking out another one to add a
sense of sound effects. The comic book writer and artist Roy Crane popularized this tradition, inventing
words such as “ker-splash” and “lickety-wop” to further diversify the range of sounds imitable in comic
books.

Significance of Onomatopoeia in Literature

Onomatopoeia is often used in literature to create aural effects that mimic the visual thing being
described. Authors sometimes use combinations of words to create an onomatopoetic effect not
necessarily using words that are onomatopoetic in and of themselves. For example, in Samuel Taylor
Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Coleridge uses the phrase “furrow followed free” to mimic
the sound of the wake left behind a ship.