What is the term for a word that sounds like what it describes?

The term for a word that sounds like what it describes is onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia describes words that imitate, resemble, or suggest the sounds they refer to. English examples include “buzz,” “meow,” “hiss,” “clang,” and “tick-tock.” The term can refer both to an individual sound-imitating word and to the process of forming such words.

Sound imitation is shaped by each language’s phonetic system, so the same noise may be represented differently around the world. A clock is “tick tock” in English, “tic tac” in Spanish and Italian, and “dī dā” in Mandarin. These forms are not exact recordings; they are culturally and linguistically filtered approximations.

Onomatopoeia is often confused with alliteration, assonance, and consonance. Those devices repeat consonant or vowel sounds within phrases, whereas onomatopoeia connects a word’s sound with the external sound or action it represents. Some words, such as “cough” and “pigeon,” may have begun as sound-imitation terms even though modern speakers no longer notice the connection.