alarum

English

Etymology

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

Noun

alarum (plural alarums)

1. A danger signal or warning.
2. A call to arms.
   • c. 1605, Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene II

     (stage direction) A camp near Forres. Alarum within.

   • 1969, Michael Arlen, Living Room War

     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 least tamed, by the enveloping cozy alarums of the household.

Derived terms

• alarums and excursions

See also

• alarm

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.
   • c. 1605 Shakespeare, Macbeth Act II, Scene I

     "Now o'er the one half-world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murther, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost."

Usage notes

• Alarum is an old spelling of alarm (as a noun or a verb), which has stayed around as a deliberate archaism. Possibly it is retained because of its use in Shakespeare's plays.

Anagrams

• marula

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Latin

Noun

ālārum f

1. genitive plural of āla