Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A warning or alarm, especially a call to arms.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Same as
alarm . - noun Same as
alarm , but now used only in sense 4, except poetically.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Now Poetic See
alarm .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
danger signal orwarning . - noun A call to arms.
- verb archaic To sound alarums, to sound an
alarm .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an automatic signal (usually a sound) warning of danger
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I'm not trying to ring the alarum bells like Margaret Someville, for whom every advance in medicine and genetics threatens damnation.
Archive 2009-03-01 2009
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"The Signalman" by Charles Dickens (1866) This perfectly balanced, beautifully judged story both preys on both the anxiety provoked by the new technology of railways and deeply held beliefs that a ghost can be an alarum for events to follow.
Kate Mosse's top 10 ghost stories Kate Mosse 2010
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Congress referred this alarum to a committee, and in conference with the Financier decided that still another circular would be pointless.
Robert Morris Charles Rappleye 2010
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On the night of January 3, 1935, the puddlers on Form B-1, at the upstream edge of the dam adjacent to the Arizona cliffside, heard this sinister alarum a split second before a full bucket came careening over the edge of the form.
Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010
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On the night of January 3, 1935, the puddlers on Form B-1, at the upstream edge of the dam adjacent to the Arizona cliffside, heard this sinister alarum a split second before a full bucket came careening over the edge of the form.
Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010
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Congress referred this alarum to a committee, and in conference with the Financier decided that still another circular would be pointless.
Robert Morris Charles Rappleye 2010
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They should make it mandatory for use as telaphone ringtones, car honkifiers and all alarum clocks everywhare.
IT’S - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2009
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Some sounded the alarum, but no one wanted to hear it, so they were run off in shame.
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I'm not trying to ring the alarum bells like Margaret Someville, for whom every advance in medicine and genetics threatens damnation.
Painful memories 2009
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This is a fight for life or death — yon waterfall sounds the alarum for our conflict. —
Anne of Geierstein 2008
bilby commented on the word alarum
"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, as Congreve noticed. Music hath alarums to wild the civil breast as well, as Tull Kupferberg pointed out. It is partly a matter of the mode of music, but then as well, something to do with the ears the music exists in."
- 'Mozic And The Revolution', Germaine Greer in Oz, 1969.
March 27, 2008