Alarum

//əˈlɑɹəm// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A danger signal or warning.

    "These are the only visible luxuries: the rest is the irreducible minimum of poverty's needs: a wretched bed heaped with all sorts of coverings that have any warmth in them, a draped packing case with a basin and jug on it and a little looking glass over it, a chair and table, the refuse of some suburban kitchen, and an American alarum clock on the shelf above the unused fireplace: the whole lighted with a gas lamp with a penny in the slot meter."

  2. 2
    an automatic signal (usually a sound) warning of danger wordnet
  3. 3
    A call to arms.

    "Come let vs meet them at the mountain foot, / And with a ſodaine and an hot alarum / Driue all their horſes headlong down the hill."

Verb
  1. 1
    To sound alarums, to sound an alarm. archaic

    "Now o're the one halfe World / Nature ſeemes dead, and wicked Dreames abuſe / The Curtain'd ſleepe: Witchcraft celebrates / Pale Heccats Offrings: and wither'd Murther, / Alarum'd by his Centinell, the Wolfe, / Whoſe howle's his Watch, thus with his ſtealthy pace, / With Tarquins rauiſhing ſides, towards his deſigne / Moues like a Ghoſt."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English alarom, from Old Italian all'arme (“to arms, to the weapons”), from Latin arma, armorum (“weapons”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English alarom, from Old Italian all'arme (“to arms, to the weapons”), from Latin arma, armorum (“weapons”).

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