Hizkuntzalaritzan, onomatopeia soinu bat imitatzen duen hitza edo hitz taldea da. Horien adibide dira tas-tas, danba-danba edo plisti-plasta bezalakoak. Onomatopeiak erabiltzen dira animalien soinuak adierazteko ere.

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Onomatopœia (/ˌɒnəˌmætəˈpiːə, -ˌmɑː-/ (About this soundlisten);[1][2] from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία;[3] ὄνομα for "name"[4] and ποιέω for "I make",[5] adjectival form: "onomatopœic" or "onomatopœtic") 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 of the onomatopoeia process 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;[6][7] hence the sound of a clock may be expressed as "tick tock" in English, "tic tac" in Spanish and Italian, "dī dā" in Mandarin, "katchin katchin" in Japanese, or "tik-tik" in Hindi.

Although in the English language the term onomatopœia means 'the imitation of a sound', the compound word onomatopœia (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'.