Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or resembling an echo.
  • adjective Imitative of natural sounds; onomatopoeic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or formed by echoism; onomatopoetic. See extract under echoism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (linguistics) Formed in imitation of a natural sound; -- of words. Contrasted to nonechoic.
  • adjective Like or characteristic of an echo.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to an echo
  • adjective imitative of a sound; onomatopoeic.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (of words) formed in imitation of a natural sound
  • adjective like or characteristic of an echo

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • coccyx: 1615, from Gk. kokkyx "cuckoo" from kokku, like the bird's Eng. name echoic of its cry, so called by ancient Gk. physician Galen because the bone in humans supposedly resembles a cuckoo's beak.

    WORDS WORDS WORDS News from Mad Plato 2007

  • coccyx: 1615, from Gk. kokkyx "cuckoo" from kokku, like the bird's Eng. name echoic of its cry, so called by ancient Gk. physician Galen because the bone in humans supposedly resembles a cuckoo's beak.

    Archive 2007-12-01 News from Mad Plato 2007

  • Intimations Ode is sounded early on in the cognate object "sing a joyous song" (l. 19): echoic token of that pastoral "There was a time" (l. 1) when birds were everywhere and full-throated — and where the epithet "joyous" was as taken for granted, in the tautologies of the prefallen, as that prelinguistic song sung.

    Phonemanography: Romantic to Victorian 2008

  • He watched as the two entered, the occasionally stiff, not-quite-human movements of the new android echoic of its—of her—creator.

    Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Shattered Light David R. George III 2010

  • I remember as she said his name, I had one of those echoic moments.

    With Love and Laughter, John Ritter Amy Yasbeck 2010

  • I've been exploring an alternative origin of this word, not from an echoic origin, but rather as a possible Semitic loan.

    The so-called imitative status of PIE *pneu- "to sneeze" 2008

  • In a bat's case, I have speculated, it might be surfaces of different echoic properties or textures, perhaps red for shiny, blue for velvety, green for abrasive.

    The God Delusion Dawkins, Richard, 1941- 2006

  • The swimmer, the dreamer—he had no sense of himself as himself yet—heard a voice, echoic and distorted.

    Fear Itself Jonathan Nasaw 2003

  • Superstition and Revelation is as echoic -- as allusive, if you will -- as any text in Hemans.

    Hemans, Heber, and _Superstition and Revelation_ 1998

  • In Stage 1, sensations immediately received (without requiring any focused attention) by the primary sensory cortex are initially stored in the sensory memory “store” (ultra-short-term store, echoic/iconic memory).

    The Neuropsychiatric Guide to Modern Everyday Psychiatry Michael Alan Taylor 1993

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