When was onomatopoeia first used

Pat Wells. I remember having to teach onomatopoeia as a first year high school teacher. Somehow, I had missed learning it in school, so it was new to me when I had to teach it. Aug 12, PM. Sep 16, AM. Apr 12, PM. Brad Schwebler. Apr 11, PM. Cindy Newman. Apr 4, PM. Richard G Schwartz. Mar 27, PM. Louella Wilson. Well Bill, it certainly was not one of the individuals given!

So your point is??? Mar 25, PM. Alan Waites. Did you know? Recent Examples on the Web Reading his writing can be kind of like taking a psychedelic — a literary onomatopoeia. First Known Use of onomatopoeia circa , in the meaning defined at sense 1.

Learn More About onomatopoeia. Time Traveler for onomatopoeia The first known use of onomatopoeia was circa See more words from the same year. Listen to Our Podcast About onomatopoeia. Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox! Sign Up. Watch More on onomatopoeia. A Look at Uncommon Onomatopoeia Some imitative words are more surprising than others. Instead, they speak to a larger phenomenon: Words formed from a sound and intended to imitate that sound—what linguists refer to as onomatopoeia—fluctuate around the world even when the underlying sound is roughly the same in each place.

It has something to do with the alchemy of humans in different times and places striving to mimic noises in the world around them, and to incorporate this mimicry into distinct linguistic systems and cultural contexts.

But what exactly? Language is too changeable to allow us that pleasure, standing as we are at the end of a possibly ,year timeline since human speech began. By day, Abbott is a professor of biomedical engineering. But for fun, in the course of his travels, he has amassed a giant spreadsheet of animal sounds in different languages from which the examples above are drawn. Few words are as fun to say as onomatopoeia, but what the heck does it mean?

Many commonly used words are onomatopoeias. Onomatopoeias are used to give a sense of action or intensity to writing or drawings. Onomatopoeias are fun words that give a little pizzazz to writing or drawings. The first records of the term onomatopoeia come from around Onomatopoeia has been used in many works of writing and sometimes shows up in artwork.

Most onomatopoeias are words that represent sounds, such as animal calls cows moo , birds tweet and other noises woosh , boom , and thump. But onomatopoeias can describe actions as well, such as poof , splash , and sizzle. In writing, onomatopoeias are used to enhance a sentence or provide atmosphere to a scene, as in The bull crashed through the china shop. If you watch cartoons or read comic books, you have probably seen a good example of how onomatopoeia can be used to increase intensity or excitement.