Onomatopoeia
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40 free Onomatopoeia trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Onomatopoeia is the trick of making a word sound like the thing it names: buzz, splash, sizzle, thud. Every language does it, and no two do it in quite the same way, which is why a sneeze, a doorbell or a barking dog is spelled so differently from one country to the next. This quiz follows sound words wherever they turn up. There are questions on animal calls around the world, the sound effects of comics and television, and the surprising number of products, creatures and everyday objects that were simply named after the noise they make. A few questions look at the poets, novelists and linguists who have studied the idea or stretched it. It suits English classes, pub quiz teams and anyone who enjoys the odd corners of language. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so the quiz works as revision for the literary device as well as a game.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which arcade hero is named after a Japanese sound word for a mouth opening and closing?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man comes from paku paku, the Japanese sound of a mouth opening and closing. In Japan it was first Puck Man, renamed for North America over fears that vandals would alter the P.
Q 02Which Ferrero mint, first sold as Refreshing Mints, is named for the click of its pack opening?
Tic Tac
Tic Tac replaced the original name in 1970, a year after the mints launched. The new name copied the click of the pack being opened and closed.
Q 03Which 1960s superhero TV series splashed Pow, Bam and Zonk across the screen during fistfights?
Batman
Batman superimposed the words on each episode's climactic brawl to mimic comic-book fight panels. Its narrator was the uncredited executive producer, William Dozier.
Q 04Hummingbirds are named for a humming sound that comes from which part of their bodies?
Wings
Wings beating at high frequency make the hum, which other birds can hear as well as people. Hovering in particular produces the hum, which works as an alert.
Q 05Which Kellogg's cereal has three elf mascots named after the noises it makes in a bowl of milk?
Rice Krispies
Rice Krispies collapse when milk is added, making the sounds that named Snap, Crackle and Pop. The noises are written differently in other countries and languages.
Q 06Which fastener, named for its sound, was christened by B.F. Goodrich for a new line of rubber boots?
Zipper
Zipper was Goodrich's 1923 name for galoshes that closed with Gideon Sundbäck's fastener, and the word stuck to the device. In Britain it is simply a zip.
Q 07Which three-wheeled taxi, a common sight in Bangkok, is named after the sputter of its small engine?
Tuk-tuk
Tuk-tuk mimics the sound of a small two-stroke engine. In Delhi, a Harley-Davidson-powered cousin was called the phat-phati for the noise it made.
Q 08Which Pokémon's name joins two Japanese sound words, one for a sparkle and one for a mouse's squeak?
Pikachu
Pikachu combines pika, a sparkling sound, with chu, the noise a mouse makes. Series director Junichi Masuda called it one of the hardest names to create.
Q 09The French shout cocorico as a victory cry; it is their version of which farm animal's call?
Rooster
Rooster crows are written cocorico in French. The bird is one of the French Republic's emblems, which is why its call doubles as a cheer.
Q 10Which sport's sound-imitating nickname became a Parker Brothers trademark in the United States?
Table tennis
Table tennis became ping-pong, a word that copies the sound of the game. Parker Brothers enforced its American trademark in the 1920s, which pushed clubs and associations to use the name table tennis.
Q 11Which laughing Australian kingfisher takes its name from a Wiradjuri word imitating its call?
Kookaburra
Kookaburra comes from the Wiradjuri guuguubarra. Its call became a stock jungle sound effect in old films, including ones set in Africa and South America.
Q 12Which Aboriginal Australian wind instrument has an English name thought to imitate its own sound?
Didgeridoo
Didgeridoo is not a word from any Aboriginal Australian language. It is considered an imitation of the sound the instrument makes.
Q 13Which group scored a first Billboard Hot 100 number one with the sound-effect title Boom Boom Pow?
The Black Eyed Peas
Q 21The word onomatopoeia comes from an Ancient Greek compound with which literal meaning?
Name-making
Name-making is the literal sense, from ónoma, name, and poiéō, making. Linguists also call words that copy sounds echoic or imitative.
Q 22Doki doki, the Japanese sound word in Doki Doki Literature Club!, imitates which everyday sound?
A heartbeat
A heartbeat, or rather two of them, is what doki doki copies. Japanese speakers use the phrase to say that someone's heart is throbbing.
Q 23In the bouba/kiki experiment, most people match the made-up word kiki to which kind of shape?
A spiky one
A spiky one gets kiki, while bouba goes to the rounded blob. One explanation is that the mouth itself makes a rounder shape to say bouba.
The Black Eyed Peas held the top spot for 12 weeks with the song. It was finally knocked off by the group's own follow-up, I Gotta Feeling.
Q 14In Marvel comics, which X-Man's weapons slide out with the metallic sound effect snikt?
Wolverine
Wolverine extends his claws with a snikt. The sound is so tied to him that Marvel titled a 2003 miniseries by manga artist Tsutomu Nihei Wolverine: Snikt!
Q 15Kachi kachi in Japanese and dī dā in Mandarin are both sound words for which household object?
A clock
A clock also goes ṭik-ṭik in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali. Sound words follow each language's own phonetic rules, so one noise ends up with many spellings.
Q 16The game KerPlunk is named for the sound of which pieces tumbling to the bottom of its tube?
Marbles
Marbles rest on a lattice of plastic straws inside the tube, and players pull the straws out one at a time. Whoever drops the fewest wins.
Q 17Which American poet popularised tintinnabulation in The Bells, a poem printed only after his death?
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe is often wrongly credited with inventing the word, which is built on the Latin for bell. The poem ran in a magazine in November 1849, weeks after he died.
Q 18Which lizard's English name comes from a Malay word imitating the call some species make?
Gecko
Gecko is traced by dictionaries to the Malay gekoq, said to copy the call of species such as the tokay. Most of the family chirp or click to one another, unusually for lizards.
Q 19Which word for outsiders began with ancient Greeks imitating foreign speech as meaningless babble?
Barbarian
Barbarian comes from bárbaros, the Greeks' echo of speech that sounded to them like 'bar bar'. Sanskrit has a similar sound word, barbara, for foreigners' stammering.
Q 20The Slurpee, a frozen drink named for the sound of drinking it, is sold by which store chain?
7-Eleven
7-Eleven licensed the slushy drink from the Icee Company and renamed it in 1966. Bob Stanford, an advertising agency director, coined the new name.
Q 24Which pop artist painted Whaam!, a comic-book diptych of a fighter plane firing a rocket?
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein first showed the painting in New York in 1963. London's Tate bought it three years later, over the objections of some of its own trustees.
Q 25Which North American songbird is named for an alarm call that adds notes for deadlier predators?
Chickadee
Chickadee copies the bird's chick-a-dee-dee-dee alarm. The more dangerous the predator, such as a small owl, the more dees get added.
Q 26According to poet Robert Southey in 1812, the fizzy drink pop was named for the sound of what?
A cork being drawn
A cork being drawn made the pop, Southey told his wife in the earliest known use of the word. Soda pop joined the two terms in 1863.
Q 27Which mocking name did Max Müller give the idea that language began as imitations of natural sounds?
Bow-wow theory
Bow-wow theory was Müller's label for an idea he criticised, one held by Rousseau and Herder among others. It has since been widely discredited.
Q 28Borborygmus, from a Greek word thought to be imitative, is the medical name for which bodily noise?
Stomach rumbling
Stomach rumbling is borborygmus, made as muscle contractions push the gut's contents along. Writers have borrowed the word to describe noisy plumbing.
Q 29Which author wrote the story of Gerald McBoing-Boing, a boy who speaks only in sound effects?
Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss first told the story on a children's record. The 1950 cartoon made from it won the Oscar for best animated short.
Q 30The English word ribbit imitates which North American amphibian, whose call is often heard in films?
Pacific tree frog
Pacific tree frog males give the call to advertise themselves. Other species sound different, which is why English also has croak, for the common frog.