Origin and history of echoic

echoic(adj.)

1880; see echo (n.) + -ic. A word from the OED.

Onomatopoeia, in addition to its awkwardness, has neither associative nor etymological application to words imitating sounds. It means word-making or word-coining and is strictly as applicable to Comte's altruisme as to cuckoo. Echoism suggests the echoing of a sound heard, and has the useful derivatives echoist, echoize, and echoic instead of onomatopoetic, which is not only unmanageable, but when applied to words like cuckoo, crack, erroneous; it is the voice of the cuckoo, the sharp sound of breaking, which are onomatopoetic or word-creating, not the echoic words which they create. [James A.H. Murray, Philological Society president's annual address, 1880]

also from 1880

Entries linking to echoic

echo(n.)

mid-14c., "sound repeated by reflection," from Latin echo, from Greek ēkhō, personified in classical mythology as a mountain nymph who pined for love of Narcissus until nothing remained but her voice. It is from or related to ēkhē "sound," ēkhein "to resound," from extended form of PIE root *(s)wagh- "to resound" (source also of Sanskrit vagnuh "sound," Latin vagire "to cry," Old English swogan "to resound"). Related: Echoes. Also see echo chamber.

anechoic(adj.)

"free from echo; tending to deaden sound," 1948, in electronics, from an- (1) "not" + echoic.

-ic

Middle English -ik, -ick, word-forming element making adjectives, "having to do with, having the nature of, being, made of, caused by, similar to," from French -ique and directly from Latin -icus or from cognate Greek -ikos "in the manner of; pertaining to." From PIE adjective suffix *-(i)ko, which also yielded Slavic -isku, adjectival suffix indicating origin, the source of the -sky (Russian -skii) in many surnames. In chemistry, indicating a higher valence than names in -ous (first in benzoic, 1791).

In Middle English and after often spelled -ick, -ike, -ique. Variant forms in -ick (critick, ethick) were common in early Modern English and survived in English dictionaries into early 19c. This spelling was supported by Johnson but opposed by Webster, who prevailed.

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