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Alarm bell   /əlˈɑrm bɛl/   Listen
noun
Alarm  n.  
1.
A summons to arms, as on the approach of an enemy. "Arming to answer in a night alarm."
2.
Any sound or information intended to give notice of approaching danger; a warning sound to arouse attention; a warning of danger. "Sound an alarm in my holy mountain."
3.
A sudden attack; disturbance; broil. (R.) "These home alarms." "Thy palace fill with insults and alarms."
4.
Sudden surprise with fear or terror excited by apprehension of danger; in the military use, commonly, sudden apprehension of being attacked by surprise. "Alarm and resentment spread throughout the camp."
5.
A mechanical contrivance for awaking persons from sleep, or rousing their attention; an alarum.
Alarm bell, a bell that gives notice on danger.
Alarm clock or Alarm watch, a clock or watch which can be so set as to ring or strike loudly at a prearranged hour, to wake from sleep, or excite attention.
Alarm gauge, a contrivance attached to a steam boiler for showing when the pressure of steam is too high, or the water in the boiler too low.
Alarm post, a place to which troops are to repair in case of an alarm.
Synonyms: Fright; affright; terror; trepidation; apprehension; consternation; dismay; agitation; disquiet; disquietude. Alarm, Fright, Terror, Consternation. These words express different degrees of fear at the approach of danger. Fright is fear suddenly excited, producing confusion of the senses, and hence it is unreflecting. Alarm is the hurried agitation of feeling which springs from a sense of immediate and extreme exposure. Terror is agitating and excessive fear, which usually benumbs the faculties. Consternation is overwhelming fear, and carries a notion of powerlessness and amazement. Alarm agitates the feelings; terror disorders the understanding and affects the will; fright seizes on and confuses the sense; consternation takes possession of the soul, and subdues its faculties. See Apprehension.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Alarm bell" Quotes from Famous Books



... the market-place I ran as I was bid to the Church of St. Pierre, and great man I felt myself, as I pushed open the church door and took the bell-rope in my hand. "Ding-dong!" rang out the alarm bell from the tower hasty and quick, and ere twenty pulls at the rope, the townsmen were all around, and I was drawn into the market-place, and there at the head of the Rue des ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar

... An alarm bell sounded. Without a glance around, Seaton seized Dorothy and leaped into the testing shed. Dropping her unceremoniously to the floor he stared through the telescope sight of an enormous ray-generator which had automatically aligned itself upon the distant ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... of April. The Duke of Angouleme has made a sad figure here. The alarm bell sounded throughout Dauphiny, and numerous battalions of the national guards departed for Lyons. The Duke of Angouleme, informed of their arrival, set off helter skelter with the four thousand insurgents, who are under his orders. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... — N. alarm; alarum, larum^, alarm bell, tocsin, alerts, beat of drum, sound of trumpet, note of alarm, hue and cry, fire cross, signal of distress; blue lights; war-cry, war- whoop; warning &c 668; fogsignal, foghorn; yellow flag; danger signal; red light, red flag; fire bell; police ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... country. Peoples from the North and South flowed together, small farmers and big planters mingling in one community. When their numbers had reached sixty thousand or more, they precipitated a contest over their admission to the union, "ringing an alarm bell in the night," as Jefferson phrased it. The favorite expedient of compromise with slavery was brought forth in Congress once more. Maine consequently was brought into the union without slavery and Missouri with ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... the entrance of the Tuileries, and are greeted with a shower of stones and bottles.[1236] Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the Hotel Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the "Royal Allemand."—The alarm bell is sounding on all sides, the shops where arms are sold are pillaged, and the Hotel-de-Ville is invaded; fifteen or sixteen well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the districts to be assembled and armed.—The new sovereign, the people ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine



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