Sound-symbolic
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 characterized by sound symbolism not-comparable
"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."
- 2 characterized by sound symbolism; (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 not-comparable
""Bouba" and "Kiki" are sound-symbolic labels, not directly imitating any actual sound but nonetheless carrying strong intrinsic associations with roundness and pointiness, respectively."
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
From sound symbolism + -ic.
More for "sound-symbolic"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.