What would you call the cry of a newborn child? What about the sound that is made when your car runs over a manhole cover? When you’re so hungry you could eat an elephant, what sound does your stomach make?
child laughing, pixabay
Cachinnation is loud or hysterical laughter. It is when you laugh so hard that tears roll down your cheeks and your abdominal muscles ache. It is when you are laughing so hard that you can’t catch your breath.
Laughter is great exercise, so cachinnate away!
Chavish is chattering or prattling. It is the sound of a group of people who are all talking, or it is the sound of many birds who are all chirping or singing.
The chirr of the grasshopper or cicada isn’t very noticeable if only one insect is involved, but when there is a group of them all rubbing their wings together at the same time, the noise can be overwhelming.
Have you ever given a speech the audience didn’t like? Maybe you were in a play that offended the audience. The collective sound of hissing made by a disappointed audience is called exsibilation. Of course, being hissed at would be so much better than having rotten tomatoes or other foods thrown at you.
Gweek-gwak is that horrible squeaking noise that your shoes with rubber soles make when you walk across a hardwood or linoleum floor. In my opinion, this sound rates right up there with chalk scraping across a blackboard.
If you’ve ever heard the sound a manhole cover makes when run over by a car, you’ll agree that kinclunk is the perfect word for this sound.
Other neat car-related sounds would be chudduck, the sound you hear when a car runs over a pothole, and nogonition, what it sounds like when someone tries to start an engine that doesn’t want to cooperate.
Vagitus comes to us from the Latin word vagire, which means “to cry.” In Italian, vagire means “to wail.” It shouldn’t be surprising then to learn that vagitus is the first cry of a newborn child.
cat with mouse, wikimedia commons
Have you ever been so hungry that you’re almost sick to your stomach? And your stomach wasn’t quiet about this at all. It could have rumbled, gurgled, or growled. It’s wamble let you and anyone who was around you know just what was going on.
One morning I woke up and knew that one of my cats had a mouse trapped in the bathroom. How did I know this? I could hear the week (or weke) of the mouse. Week is the squeak of a mouse that is scared to death. This is easy to remember since “week” rhymes with “squeak.” It is also the squeal that comes from a frightened pig.
What happened to the mouse? Well, let me say that I have eight cats, so any mouse that dares to enter my home never has a chance. It was given a proper burial before my cats devoured it though.
Wheep is the metal sliding against metal sound that a sword or steel blade makes when it is being pulled out of its sheath.
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