onomatopeya

Forms

onomatopeya f (plural onomatopeyas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin onomatopoeia, which is from Ancient Greek ὀνοματοποιία (onomatopoiía, “the coining of a word”).^[2][1][3] The Greek noun is formed from ὀνοματοποιός (onomatopoiós, “coiner of names”) with the suffix -ία (-ía).^[1] Its parts are ὄνομα (ónoma, “name”) and ποιέω (poiéō, “to make, create”), so that it meant the making of words.^[4][5] Vox dates the borrowing to the 17th century and puts the word in the etymological family of nombre.^[5]

Strabo and Quintilian use the word for the coining of a word in imitation of a sound.^[6][3] The grammarian Charisius defines it as forming a word to resemble in sound what it means.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the CDH is López Pinciano's Philosofía antigua poética of 1596, which names it among the figures of speech beside antonomasia, allegory, periphrasis and hyperbaton.^[8] In 1602 Luis Alfonso de Carvallo explains it as the Greek name for words made to sound like what they mean, such as Latin mugitus for the bellowing of an ox.^[8] The BDELC dates the word 1611.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th and 18th centuries the word was a term of rhetoric: Covarrubias's Suplemento (c. 1611) explains the name of the mill clapper as made by this figure, and Mayans in 1737 defines it as the making of a name whose sound expresses the nature of the thing.^[8] The Diccionario de Autoridades calls it a figure of rhetoric that names a thing by the sound it makes or the cry it gives, and explains the Greek word as meaning “name and fiction”.^[9]

Domínguez, in 1846, already defines it as the forming of a word that imitates the thing it means, with examples such as miau and rataplán.^[10] The Academy's 1884 edition split it into three senses: the imitation of a sound in a new word, the word itself, and in rhetoric the use of such words.^[11] In 2001 it added its use for some visual phenomena, as in zigzag.^[12] American writers use it for the calls of animals: a Cuban text of 1839 says that crows call out their own name, cao, cao.^[13] onomatopeya was borrowed from Spanish.^[1]

Timeline

• 1596 – López Pinciano lists it among the figures of speech.^[8]
• 1602 – Carvallo explains it with Latin mugitus.^[8]
• c. 1611 – Covarrubias's Suplemento uses it of the word taravilla.^[8][4]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a figure of rhetoric.^[9]
• 1737 – Mayans uses it for words formed to imitate sounds.^[8]
• 1839 – first record in the Americas, in Cuba.^[13]
• 1869 – the Academy records the adjective onomatópico.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the Greek etymology and three senses.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The forming of a word by imitating the sound of the thing it names: El cuco recibió su nombre por onomatopeya.^[2][15]
2. A word whose sound imitates what it names, such as runrún or tictac.^[2][5][1]
3. (rhetoric) A figure of speech using words that imitate sounds.^[15][11]

Word family

• onomatopéyico

Related words

• nombre
• Latin onomatopoeia
• Ancient Greek ὀνοματοποιία (onomatopoiía)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. onomatopeya
3. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nombre
5. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. onomatopeya
6. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. ὀνοματοποιία
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. onomatopeya
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 40
10. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1289
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 760
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. onomatopeya
13. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. onomatopeya
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 553
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. onomatopeya