words

Wikipedia defines onomatopoeia as “a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.” I’ve always thought of these types of words as fun. Even as a child, I marveled at how words describing animal noises (eg, “oink,” “moo,” “arf”) sounded like the sounds the animals made. Here are my top 10 favorite onomatopoeic words.

• arf
• bang
• buzz
• click
• hiss
• kerplunk
• pop
• twang
• tweet
• zap

For some real onomatopoeic fun, be sure to listen to “Onomatopoeia” by Todd Rundgren. The song, from Rundgren’s Hermit of Mink Hollow, contains many onomatopoeic words as well as samples of the sounds themselves.