onomatope
/ˈɒnəmətəʊp/
"onomatope" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“onomatope” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A word formed by onomatopoeia or mimesis.
Corpus desk
Index EN-onomatope · onomatope · English
onomatope · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | onomatope |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɒnəmətəʊp/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “onomatope” in English
Rare enough to double-check
onomatope is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈɒnəmətəʊp/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A word formed by onomatopoeia or mimesis.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for onomatope, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Irregular back-formation from onomatopoeia. The correct English form is onomatope, spelled O-N-O-M-A-T-O-P-E.
Definition
- 1A word formed by onomatopoeia or mimesis.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how onomatope appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Some of the onomatopes were given with the notations of their respective sounds as they appear to the Indian ear; thus, the sound of the plane and drawing-knife (s-s-s) becomes the root sⁱu […]
From the start, [Jean] Gabin’s voice belonged to a popular, Parisian, sociological register, with his stress on vowels (‘a’ becomes ‘âââ’), his colourful slang and onomatopes such as ‘bah !’, ‘bof !’, ‘Eeeh ben !’ (for ‘Eh bien !’ [‘well!’]).
Etymology
Irregular back-formation from onomatopoeia.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.