What other words sound like what they mean, at least to your ear?

spit.

crunch.

slither.

btw, there's a word for that... is it onomatopoeia??

Somewhat related, during the recent chat with Wendalyn Nichols, the editorial director for Random House Reference, she noted that the word "enervate" is commonly misused, because it just *sounds* like it should mean 'to fill with energy'. OTOH, that's not exactly onomatopoeia; it's more akin to word association (enervate-energy). I wonder if there's a word to describe that phenomenon? tsuwm, oh master-of-useless-words? can you help?


~b