alarums

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...
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...
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

See all 4 meanings of alarum