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Definition of "echoic" []

  • Of or resembling an echo. (adjective)
  • Imitative of natural sounds; onomatopoeic: an echoic word. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "echoic" in a sentence
  • "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."
  • "I remember as she said his name, I had one of those echoic moments."
  • "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."