An onomatopoeia is a very special thing. It’s a word like quack or flutter, or oink or boom or zing. It sounds just like its meaning, for example snort and hum.

Common Examples of Onomatopoeia

• 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.

Here’s a quick and simple definition: Onomatopoeia is a figure of speech in which words evoke the actual sound of the thing they refer to or describe. The “boom” of a firework exploding, the “tick tock” of a clock, and the “ding dong” of a doorbell are all examples of onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia Example Sentences The dog barked all night. The mouse went squeak as it ran across the room. Suddenly, there was a loud thud at the door. The waves crashed against the side of the boat.

The most common kind of onomatopoeia echoes familiar human noises: belch, burp, grunt, haha. Capturing animal sounds has been a challenge for every language since a snake hissed at Eve. In The Frogs, Aristophanes famously decided that his chorus of croaking frogs sound like this: Brek-ke-kex, koax-koax.

You close the front of your jacket to protect yourself. Zip. These words are all nouns that express the sound effect you are hearing. Onomatopoetic words are not only nouns, though.

Sneeze. The original onomatopoeias for the action of forcefully expelling air out of your mouth and nose were “fneosan” and “fnese.” Saying that out loud sounds a lot like a sneeze, right? Once you learn about these examples of onomatopoeia, make sure you also brush up on the homophones people confuse all the time.

It’s an onomatopoeia . To huff is to basically breathe in/ inhale. To puff would be to blow/exhale.

In general, sounds in fiction are formatted using italics. If the context requires the sound to stand alone for emphasis, it is usually recommended the author use the sound on its own line. If someone is describing sound in first person narrative, there are instances where italics might include dashes.

Some other very common English-language examples are hiccup, zoom, bang, beep, moo, and splash. Machines and their sounds are also often described with onomatopoeia: honk or beep-beep for the horn of an automobile, and vroom or brum for the engine.

Choo, chug and chuff are onomatopoeic words for the sound a steam train makes. In BE, choo-choo and (less commonly) chuff-chuff are onomatopoeic words for “train” (or more specifically, the engine) – they are used when speaking to very young children and thus, by very young children.

If you have a flutter, you have a small bet on something such as a horse race. [British, informal] I had a flutter on five horses. [ + on] Synonyms: bet, gamble, punt [mainly British], wager More Synonyms of flutter.