Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A warning or alarm, especially a call to arms: "This instrument called television can teach and illuminate, cautioned Edward R. Murrow, but only to the extent that its operators choose to use it.... An era later ... Murrow's alarum remains as up to date as tonight's news” ( Harry F. Waters).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Now Poetic See alarm.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an automatic signal (usually a sound) warning of danger
Etymologies
- From Middle English alarom, from Italian all'arme ("to arms, to the weapons"), from arma, armorum ("weapons") (Wiktionary)
- Middle English alarom, variant of alarm, alarm; see alarm. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“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.”
“Congress referred this alarum to a committee, and in conference with the Financier decided that still another circular would be pointless.”
“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.”
“I'm not trying to ring the alarum bells like Margaret Someville, for whom every advance in medicine and genetics threatens damnation.”
“They should make it mandatory for use as telaphone ringtones, car honkifiers and all alarum clocks everywhare.”
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“Some sounded the alarum, but no one wanted to hear it, so they were run off in shame.”
“This is a fight for life or death — yon waterfall sounds the alarum for our conflict. —”
“But he saw none of the ancient counsellors of the kingdom, none of the high officers of the crown, heard none of the names which in those days sounded an alarum to chivalry; saw none either of those generals or leaders, who, possessed of the full prime of manhood, were the strength of France, or of the more youthful and fiery nobles, those early aspirants after honour, who were her pride.”
“Thx, Romeow for sounding teh generul alarum, and thx woodchuck for being a round peepul peepul catcher thingy!”
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“Oncet upon a time when I worked in a diffrent offis than whare I does now, someone not me burnded their mircowavy popcorms and it set off teh smoke alarum so teh firemans had to respond.”
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Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘alarum’.
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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billy shakespeare's guide to good living
hurlyburly, nave, direful, whence, sooth, dwindle, tempest-tost, withal, selfsame, wrack, unfix, recompense and 142 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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King Lear
Some less-than-common words, significant themes, or excellent phrases from my favourite play.
moiety, brazed, champain, felicitate, interess, propinquity, betwixt, sith, forevouch, wat'rish, benison, ingraff and 111 more...
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Alpha
A
aasvogel, aberuncator, abibliophobia, abscission, absquatulate, abstemious, abstergent, abstriction, acalculia, acanthus, achillean, acuminate and 86 more...
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keats
hyperion, endymion, basil, nectarous, gordian, stygian, pelf, phantasied, bier, plumage, writhen, phial and 57 more...
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cloudatlas
pusillanimity, vouchsafe, polymath, scrimshandered, husbandry, abrogate, desideratum, alarum, vicissitudes, scrofula, proscribe, engender and 24 more...
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Dark Tower
Words used by Stephen King in The Dark Tower series.
apse, transmogrify, interloper, declamation, gawp, atavistic, mote, osmotic, cyclopean, truculent, ablution, withe and 78 more...
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Theorie: The Madwoman's Underclothes
'The Madwoman's Underclothes' book is a collection of writings by Germaine Greer from 1968 to 1985. The title refers to what she sees as being the media's obsession with her going bra-less. Warning...
homespun, shuck, flyte, animadversion, groover, tom jones, fucker, cocksman, sweety-sharp, goatman, ha-ha, corridor of power and 84 more...
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themodestokid's Words
foetid, crumble, crayfish, slight, macaroon, anæsthesiologist, æsthete, mellifluous, carnation, hellacious, dawning, slumgullion and 30 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for alarum.
bilby "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. Mar 27, 2008