onomatopoeia

Figure of speech that copies natural sounds. For example, the word ‘cuckoo’ imitates the sound that the cuckoo makes.

Such words as bang, crash, ripple, smash, splash, and thump are said to be onomatopoeic. Onomatopoeia works differently in different languages, the English bow-wow for a sound made by dogs being paralleled by the French oua, oua. Onomatopoeia may be built into prose or verse, as in ‘a sudden sizzling sound’, the s and z sounds used to suggest frying.