8 Words You Didn’t Know Were Onomatopoeias

An onomatopoeia is a word that mimics the sound it’s meant to describe. You might be familiar with some of the more overt examples, such as “buzz,” “splat,” “hiss,” “pow,” and “boom” — think of the words that used to be splashed on the TV during fight scenes in the original Batman cartoons. Some onomatopoeic words, however, aren’t as obvious. Here are eight examples of onomatopoeias that are hiding in your regular vocabulary.

A cliché is “a trite phrase or expression” — for example, “don’t judge a book by its cover” or “actions speak louder than words.” The term came about from 19th-century French print workers using printing presses, which made clacking sounds, to make copy after copy of the same design. The French clicher, meaning “to stereotype,” developed from the sound of the copies being made. The word “cliché” came into English in the 1880s.

When you tinker with something, you’re likely repairing or adjusting it. The word isn’t specific to any one material today, but when it emerged in the late 14th century, it referred to folks who mended pots or pans, which in many cases were made from tin or other metal. Etymologists suggest the term “tinker” comes from the sound that the person’s tools would make when coming into contact with metal.

Children learn that “hoot” is the sound an owl makes, but that wasn’t always the word people most closely associated with owls. In Old English, an owl was called an ule — a term meant to emulate the wailing sound that the bird made. There are similar words in other languages, such as Dutch (uil) and German (Eule). Over time, the English spelling evolved into the modern “owl.”

The actual sound of a cough can range from a light expulsion of air to something emulating a lion’s roar. But in a strictly etymological sense, the word “cough” is onomatopoeic. It reflects the sound made between the closure of the glottis (the middle part of the larynx) combined with the noise made by air whizzing through the trachea (the windpipe).

People often associate the word “flicker” with a shimmering light or candle, but that meaning didn’t come about until around the year 1600. The term was previously coined as a reference to the sound made by a bird’s wings quickly fluttering through the air.

When you think of someone bouncing around on a pogo stick, your first thought may be the onomatopoeic word “boing.” But the word “bounce” is also an onomatopoeia. It likely comes from the Dutch bonzen or German bunsen (both meaning “to thump”), which were coined to imitate that sort of reverberating sound.

While it’s known as table tennis at the Olympics, many people call the game Ping-Pong — a trademarked name coined to reflect the variety of sounds the ball makes during gameplay. The “ping” is meant to imitate the sound of the ball hitting a racquet, whereas “pong” is akin to the sound made when the ball hits the table.

Ask a kid to make the sound of a bumblebee and they’ll probably start buzzing at you. But the term “bumblebee” itself is an onomatopoeia. The word was coined in the 1520s as a replacement for the Middle English “humbul-be,” which itself was derived from the earlier Middle English term “bombeln.” Those words meant “to boom” or “to buzz” and were coined to emulate the sound bees made.