Definition of "onomatopoeia"

onomatopoeia

/ˌɒnəˌmætəˈpiːə/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural onomatopoeias or onomatopoeiae
1. (uncountable) The property of a word that sounds like what it represents.
  Quotations
  A woorde making called of the Grecians Onomatapoia, is when wee make wordes of our owne minde, such as bee derived from the nature of things.
  1553, Thomas Wilson, Desiderius Erasmus, Arte of Rhetorique‎, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1909
2. (countable) A word that sounds like what it represents, such as "gurgle", "stutter", or "hiss".
  1. (countable) A word that appropriates a sound for another sensation or a perceived nature, such as "thud", "beep", or "meow"; an ideophone, phenomime.
3. (uncountable, rhetoric) The use of language whose sound imitates that which it names.