onomatopoeia

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The Word of the Day for June 20 is:

onomatopoeia   \ah-nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh\   noun
    *1 : the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound 
associated with it (as buzz, hiss)  
     2 : the use of words whose sound suggests the sense

Example sentence: 
     When Blaine said that the bacon was sizzling and the refrigerator was 
humming, he was using examples of onomatopoeia.

Did you know? 
     Onomatopoeia came into English via Late Latin, but the word "onomatopoeia" 
traces back to the Greek "onoma," meaning "name," and "poiein," meaning "to 
make." ("Onoma" can be found in such terms as "onomastics," which refers to the 
study of proper names and their origins, while "poiein" gave us such words as 
"poem" and "poet.") English speakers have only used the word "onomatopoeia" 
since the late 1500s, but people have been creating words from the sounds heard 
around them for much longer. In fact, the presence of so many imitative words 
in language spawned the linguistic bowwow theory, which postulates that 
language originated in imitation of natural sounds.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.