<P> Onomatopoeia (/ ˌɒnəˌmætəˈpiːə, - ˌmɑː - / (listen); from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία; ὄνομα for "name" and ποιέω for "I make", adjectival form: "onomatopoeic" or "onomatopoetic") is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes . As such words are uncountable nouns, onomatopoeia refers to the property of such words . Common occurrences of words our of the onomatopoeia process include animal noises such as "oink", "miaow" (or "meow"), "roar" "microwave" and "chirp". Onomatopoeia can differ between languages: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system; hence the sound of a clock may be expressed as tick tock in English, tictac in Spanish, dī dā in Mandarin, katchin katchin in Japanese, or "tik - tik" in Hindi . </P> <P> Although in the English language the term onomatopoeia means "the imitation of a sound", the compound word onomatopoeia (ὀνοματοποιία) in the Greek language means "making or creating names". For words that imitate sounds, the term ὴχομιμητικό (echomimetico) or echomimetic) is used . The word ὴχομιμητικό (echomimetico) derives from "ὴχώ", meaning echo or sound, and "μιμητικό", meaning mimetic or imitating . </P>

What is it called when a word sounds like what it means