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Onomatopoeia is pronounced ah-nuh-mat-uh-PEE-uh in American English and on-uh-mat-uh-PEE-uh in British English. It has six syllables, with the main stress on PEE and a lighter stress on mat. The tricky end, poeia, is just PEE-uh.
onomatopoeia
noun · the use of words that sound like the thing they name, such as buzz, hiss or bang
Also said: US /ˌɑː.noʊˌmæt̬.oʊˈpiː.ə/.
IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Cambridge gives ah-noh-mat-oh-PEE-uh for American English, with oh in place of uh. We follow Oxford. The recording is American English.
Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.
US American English/ˌɑː.nəˌmæt̬.əˈpiː.ə/
ah
nuh
mat
uh
PEEstressed
uh
UK British English/ˌɒn.əˌmæt.əˈpiː.ə/
on
uh
mat
uh
PEEstressed
uh
Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes onomatopoeia, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.
Tip. The end, poeia, is just PEE-uh. The oe sounds like ee, as in amoeba, and the main stress falls here.
Record yourself and play it next to our recording: the quickest way to hear a difference.
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onomatopoeia
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What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say ah-nuh-mat-uh-PEE-uh.
Noton-uh-mat-uh-POH-ee-uh
Saying oe as oh-ee, which adds a syllable. The oe is one sound, ee: PEE-uh.
Noton-uh-MAT-uh-pee-uh
Putting the main stress on mat. Mat gets only a light stress; the strong beat is on PEE.
Noton-uh-muh-TOP-ee-uh
Reading top as a stressed syllable. Split the middle as mat-uh, then say PEE-uh.
Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.
Words like buzz and hiss are examples of onomatopoeia.
The poem uses onomatopoeia to copy the sound of rain.
Comics are full of onomatopoeia, like bang and pow.
The word is Greek. Onomatopoiia meant the making of names, from onoma, a name, and poiein, to make. Poem and poet come from the same Greek verb. English took the word through Latin in the 1500s.
Latin wrote the Greek oi as oe, and English says that oe as ee, as in amoeba and Phoebe. So poeia is PEE-uh: a p, an ee and a weak uh.
Break the word into three pairs: on-uh, mat-uh, PEE-uh. Each pair is a strong sound and a weak uh, and the last pair carries the main stress. In American English the first pair is ah-nuh, and the t is a soft tap.
Rhymes and words that share its tricky sound. Open any of them in the checker and say it.
In Slova you say new words out loud in every lesson, at your level, in lessons built around what you love.