the opposite of onomatopoeia?

A friend recently asked if there was a word for the opposite of onomatopoeia. His example was "monosyllabic." Onomatopoeia, as you recall, is the phenomenon of forming a word in resemblance to whatever it describes: slurp, fart, cock-a-doodle-doo.

But I think you could call "monosyllabic" an anechoic word, and not strictly anti-onomatopoeic.

That's because, strictly speaking, onomatopoeia doesn't just refer to words that in some way happen to resemble what's named (like the very quick word "quick.") It refers to words that are formed by imitation. So, no one formed the word "monosyllabic" to deliberately be multisyllabic to spite its meaning. It just happened that way, like "quick."

That got me to wondering whether there are words that are more than merely anechoic. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "break wind." "Break wind" not only doesn't sound like a fart the way "fart" does; you could argue that its formation came about as a deliberate way to avoid sounding too farty.

And, by the way, the term I shall use is anechopoeia. So, there's one example. Any others?

Comments

I call the idea nonomatopoeia. My example has been "refulgent", but it may not correctly fit the definition. I just think it sounds nothing like radiance.

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