sound-symbolic

English

Alternative forms

• sound symbolic

Etymology

From sound symbolism +‎ -ic.

Adjective

sound-symbolic (not comparable)

1. (linguistics, phonology) characterized by sound symbolism
   1. (more specifically) (of a unit of sound or meaning such as a word, morpheme, phoneme, syllable, etc.) composed of speech sounds that are not arbitrary but also not overtly onomatopoeic

      "Bouba" and "Kiki" are sound-symbolic labels, not directly imitating any actual sound but nonetheless carrying strong intrinsic associations with roundness and pointiness, respectively.

   Synonyms: (sometimes) expressive, imitative, mimological, phonaesthetic, phonosemantic

Hyponyms

• expressive
• ideophonic
• (non-arbitrary): onomatopoeic (see there for its synonyms)
• phonesthemic