sound-symbolic
English · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
sound-symbolic
Where it comes from
From sound symbolism + -ic.
adjective sound symbolic
-
characterized by sound symbolism
Wagner proposes a sound-symbolic origin, after the sounds these insects [grasshoppers] make. Although this cannot be fully excluded, this word exhibits suspiciously little formal variation for a sound-symbolic formation.
Similar: expressive, ideophonic, imitative, mimological, phonaesthetic, phonosemantic
-
(of a unit of sound or meaning such as a word, morpheme, phoneme, syllable, etc.) composed of speech sounds that are not arbitrary but also not overtly onomatopoeic
"Bouba" and "Kiki" are sound-symbolic labels, not directly imitating any actual sound but nonetheless carrying strong intrinsic associations with roundness and pointiness, respectively.
Similar: expressive, ideophonic, imitative, mimological, phonaesthetic, phonosemantic
Talk about this word "sound-symbolic." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/sound-symbolic. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. sound-symbolic. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/sound-symbolic "sound-symbolic." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/sound-symbolic.Cite this
@misc{sound_symbolic_2026,
title = {sound-symbolic},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/sound-symbolic},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
