An onomatopoeia (sometimes written as onomatopœia) ( pronunciation (US) (help·info), from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία;[1] ὄνομα for "name"[2] and ποιέω for "I make",[3] adjectival form: "onomatopoeic" or "onomatopoetic") is a word that phonetically imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Onomatopoeia (as an uncountable noun) refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises such as "oink", "meow", "roar" or "chirp". Onomatopoeias are not the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to the broader linguistic system they are part of;[clarification needed] hence the sound of a clock may be tick tock in English, dī dā in Mandarin, or katchin katchin in Japanese.
Although in the English language the term onomatopoeia means the imitation of a sound, in the Greek language the compound word onomatopoeia (ονοματοποιία) means "making or creating names". For words that imitate sounds the term Ηχομιμητικό (echomimetico or echomimetic) is used. Ηχομιμητικό (echomimetico) from Ηχώ meaning "echo or sound" and μιμητικό meaning "mimetic or imitation".