Onomatopoeia is the use or creation of a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as oink, meow (or miaow), roar, 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, tic tac in Spanish and Italian (shown in the picture), dī dā in Mandarin, kachi kachi in Japanese, or tik-tik in Hindi.

The English term comes from the Ancient Greek compound onomatopoeia, 'name-making', composed of onomato- 'name' and -poeia 'making'. Thus, words that imitate sounds can be said to be onomatopoeic or onomatopoetic.