noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Any correspondence between the sound of a word and its meaning; examples include onomatopoeia and the use of phonesthemes. uncountable

   "For this latter term, phonaesthesia is doubtless at work, since kring is also ‘the sound of a small bell’."

Synonyms

All synonyms

sound symbolismsound symbolismsynaesthesia

Example

More examples

"For this latter term, phonaesthesia is doubtless at work, since kring is also ‘the sound of a small bell’."

Etymology

Apparently coined by British linguist John Rupert Firth. From phon- + -aesthesia.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.