tocsin

English

Etymology

From Old French toquesain (modern tocsin), from Provençal tocasenh, from tocar ‘strike, touch’ + senh ‘bell’.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈtɒksɪn/
• Rhymes: -ɒksɪn
• Homophone: toxin

Noun

tocsin (plural tocsins)

1. An alarm or other signal sounded by a bell or bells, especially with reference to France.
   • 1804, The Times, 23 Aug 1804, p.3 col. C

     At half-past one, on the sounding of the tocsin (or bell of the public-house) about fifteen persons were collected, when the Rev. J. Bromley was called to the chair.

   • 1970, JG Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition:

     As she entered the projection theatre the soundtrack reverberated across the sculpture garden, a melancholy tocsin modulated by Talbert’s less and less coherent commentary.

   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 281:

     I'll ring the tocsin, I'll have Saint-Antoine out. I can put twenty thousand armed men on the streets, just like that.

2. A bell used to sound an alarm.

Translations

bell

• Finnish: hälytyskello (fi)

See also

• tocsin in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.

Anagrams

• tonics

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French

Etymology

From Old French toquesain, from Provençal tocasenh, from tocar ‘strike, touch’ + senh ‘bell’.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /tɔksɛ̃/

Noun

tocsin m (plural tocsins)

1. an alarm, a tocsin

Anagrams

• citons, tonics