phonaesthesia

noun

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’.

Where it comes from

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

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry phonaesthesia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

← phobosophyphonotax →

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