ECHOISM

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ECHOISM.
1. A WORD that echoes a sound: splash, echoing a liquid striking something or something striking liquid; crunch suggesting something brittle breaking into pieces.

2. An expression that echoes or alludes to another: the statement ‘Marking T. S. Eliot's centenary, not with a whimper but a bang’ (Time, 26 Sept. 1988) echoes and inverts Eliot's own lines ‘This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper’ (The Hollow Men, 1925). Compare ALLUSION, ASSONANCE, ONOMATOPOEIA. See -ISM, ROOT-CREATION, STYLE.