Word.ws English Dictionary

phonesthesia

phonesthesia is the alternative spelling of phonaesthesia.

Meaning of phonaesthesia

Noun

phonaesthesia (uncountable)

  1. Any correspondence between the sound of a word and its meaning; examples include onomatopoeia and the use of phonesthemes.
    • For this latter term, phonaesthesia is doubtless at work, since kring is also ‘the sound of a small bell’.1984, Laurence Picken, Musica Asiatica, volume 4, page 214
    Synonyms:
    sound symbolism

Origin of phonesthesia

From phon- + -esthesia.

Words formed from phonesthesia

Questions about phonesthesia

What is phonesthesia the alternative spelling of?
Phonesthesia is the alternative spelling of phonaesthesia.

Words near phonesthesia in the dictionary

  1. phonesex
  2. phonesful
  3. phonestheme
  4. phonesthemes
  5. phonesthemic
  6. phonesthesia
  7. phonesthetic
  8. phonesthetics
  9. phonet.
  10. phonetic
  11. phonetic alphabet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phonesthesia (page history and authors); phonaesthesia (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “phonesthesia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phonesthesia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.