ideophone

English

Etymology

From ideo- +‎ -phone. James F. Fordyce (The Ideophone as a Phonosemantic Class: The Case of Yoruba, in Current approaches to African linguistics, Ivan R. Dihoff (ed.), page 263) credits C. M. Doke with introducing the term in 1935.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɪ.di.(j)ə(ʊ)ˌfəʊn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

ideophone (plural ideophones)

1. (grammar) A word that uses sound symbolism to express aspects of events that can be experienced by the senses, like smell, color, shape, sound, action, or movement.
   • 1969 October, William J. Samarin, The Art of Gbeya Insults, in International Journal of American Linguistics 35(4), page 325, JSTOR

     In insults the ideophone occurs either in its characteristic position, the verb phrase, or uncharacteristically as a modifier in a noun phrase.

Derived terms

• ideophonic

Translations

sound symbolic word

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 摹擬音 / 摹拟音 (mónǐyīn)

• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: ideofoon (nl) m or n
• Estonian: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: ideofoni (fi)
• French: idéophone (fr) m
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Ideophon n
• Greek: please add this translation if you can
• Hungarian: please add this translation if you can
• Italian: ideofono m
• Japanese: (for something not a sound) 擬態語 (ja) (ぎたいご, gitaigo); (for a sound) 擬音語 (ja) (ぎおんご, giongo)
• Korean: (for something not a sound) 의태어 (ko) (uitaeeo); (for a sound) 의성어 (ko) (uiseong'eo)
• Polish: ideofon m
• Portuguese: ideofone m
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: идеофо́н (ru) m (ideofón)
• Spanish: ideófono (es)
• Swedish: ideofon c, ideofoni c
• Xhosa: isifanekisozwi
• Yoruba: idíófóònù

See also

• phonosemantic
• phonaesthesia
• onomatopoeia