klaxon
Syllables: klax·onUK/ˈklæksən/
klaxon noun: a loud electric alarm or horn, especially as used in automobiles in the early 20th century.
Noun
klaxon (plural klaxons)
- A loud electric alarm or horn, especially as used in automobiles in the early 20th century.
- And she went so swiftly that he could only follow her to the door. The large shape of the car swallowed her up; and the car twisted softly around the little drive and away to the London road. Minutes later he heard its Klaxon, just one sharp keen, like the harsh cry of a sea-bird. …1922 October, Michael Arlen, “Book the Third: The Antagonists. Chapter V.”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, London; Glasgow: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., […], published August 1924...
- There was a motor car behind them now and it blasted into the truck noise and the dust with its klaxon again and again; then flashed on lights that showed the dust like a solid yellow cloud and surged past them in a whining rise of gears and a demanding, threatening, bludgeoning of klaxoning.1940 October 21, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 42, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, →OCLC; republished London: Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, 1949 (13th...
Verb
klaxon (third-person singular simple present klaxons, present participle klaxoning, simple past and past participle klaxoned)
- To produce a loud, siren-like wail.
- He headed down the Embankment. It was noon precisely. Big Ben klaxoned the hour with blasts of servo whistle.1980, John Domatilla [pseudonym; Ian Kennedy Martin], The Last Crime, London: Heinemann, →ISBN; republished [Morrisville, N.C.?]: Lulu Press, 2012, →ISBN, page 50
- Suffering. It was like a great discordant symphony ringing out from the world; like a klaxoning of a million million cracked bells.2005 January, John Shirley, chapter 16, in Constantine: A Novelization [...] Based on Characters from the DC Comics/Vertigo Hellblazer Graphic Novels, Pocket Books paperback edition, New York, N.Y....
klaxon meaning in Hindi, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian
klaxon in Hindi
- loud electric horn or alarm
- क्लाक्सोन klākson
klaxon in Arabic
- loud electric horn or alarm
- بُوق būq, كْلَاكْسُون klāksūn
klaxon in Indonesian
- loud electric horn or alarm
- klakson
klaxon in Persian
- loud electric horn or alarm
- کلاکسون kelâksôn, بوق buq
More languagesFewer languages
- klaxon in Vietnamese
- còi, còi điện
Examples of klaxon in a sentence
- There were the klaxons, which kept up their long, monotonous, insane growling protest all through the raid.1962 September, James Jones, chapter 2, in The Thin Red Line, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, →OCLC, page 73:
- Irenka was up front using the lavatory when the lights in the cabin went red and the klaxon sounded over the speakers.2010 November, Brad R. Torgersen, “Outbound”, in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, volume CXXX, number 11, Norwalk, Conn.: Dell Magazines...
- Alarms klaxon in Mere's head—its escape is known.2015 December, A. Merc Rustad, “Tomorrow When We See the Sun”, in John Joseph Adams, editor, Lightspeed, number 67, archived from the...
Forms of klaxon
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | klaxons |
| alternative form | claxon |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | klaxons |
| present participle | klaxoning |
| past participle | klaxoned |
| past | klaxoned |
Origin of klaxon
From the trademark Klaxon, based on Ancient Greek κλάζω (klázō, “make a sharp sound; scream”). The word was coined by Franklyn Hallett Lovell Jr., the founder of the Lovell-McConnell Manufacturing Co. of Newark, New Jersey, USA, which in 1908 obtained a licence of the patent to the machine generating the sound from American inventor Miller Reese Hutchison (1876–1944).
Words formed from klaxon
Words that rhyme with klaxon
Questions about klaxon
- What does klaxon mean?
- Klaxon means a loud electric alarm or horn, especially as used in automobiles in the early 20th century.
- What is klaxon in Hindi?
- Klaxon in Hindi is क्लाक्सोन (klākson). See Klaxon meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use klaxon in a sentence?
- There were the klaxons, which kept up their long, monotonous, insane growling protest all through the raid.
- What part of speech is klaxon?
- Klaxon can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce klaxon?
- Klaxon is pronounced /ˈklæksən/ (UK).
- What is the plural of klaxon?
- The plural of klaxon is klaxons.
Words near klaxon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: klaxon (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-klaxon.flac, en-au-klaxon.ogg.
Cite this entry: “klaxon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/klaxon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.