Word.ws English Dictionary

alarum

/əˈlɑ.ɹəm/

alarum noun: a danger signal or warning.

Noun

alarum (plural alarums)

  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...1931, [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts”, in Androcles and the Lion. Overruled. Pygmalion, standard edition, London: Constable and Company, published 1951, →OCLC, Act I, page...
    • The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen.[…]The second note, the high alarum, not so familiar and always important since it indicates the paramount sin in Man's private calendar, took most of them by surprise although...1963, Margery Allingham, “Eye Witness”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 249
  2. 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.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
    • It seems to me that by the same process they are also made less "real" - distinguished, in part, by the physical size of the television screen, which, for all the industry's advances, still shows one a picture of men three inches tall shooting at other men three inches tall, and trivialized, or at...1969, Michael Arlen, Living Room War
  3. (archaic) An alarm clock.
    • Ten minutes passed by the measure of the battered old alarum on the dresser shelf before the young man returned.1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados

Verb

alarum (third-person singular simple present alarums, present participle alaruming, simple past and past participle alarumed)

  1. (archaic) To sound alarums, to sound an alarm.
    • 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...c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

alarum meaning in Bengali and Malayalam

alarum in Bengali

সতর্কীকরণ, আতঙ্কিত করার শব্দ

alarum in Malayalam

അപായസൂചന, ആയുധമെടുക്കാനുള്ള നിർദ്ദേശം, അപായസൂചന മുഴക്കുക, അലാറം മുഴക്കുക

Forms of alarum

Noun
pluralalarums
alternative formallarum
Verb
third-person singular presentalarums
present participlealaruming
past participlealarumed
pastalarumed

Origin of alarum

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

Words formed from alarum

Phrases with alarum

Questions about alarum

What does alarum mean?
Alarum means a danger signal or warning.
What is alarum in Bengali?
Alarum in Bengali is সতর্কীকরণ, আতঙ্কিত করার শব্দ. See Alarum meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is alarum?
Alarum can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce alarum?
Alarum is pronounced /əˈlɑ.ɹəm/ (US).
What is the plural of alarum?
The plural of alarum is alarums.

Words near alarum in the dictionary

  1. Alarodian
  2. ALARP
  3. alarplasties
  4. alarplasty
  5. alarsite
  6. alarum
  7. alarum clock
  8. alarum clocks
  9. alarumed
  10. alaruming
  11. alarums

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: alarum (page history and authors); alarum (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); alarum (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “alarum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alarum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.