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Alarm   /əlˈɑrm/   Listen
noun
Alarm  n.  
1.
A summons to arms, as on the approach of an enemy. "Arming to answer in a night alarm."
2.
Any sound or information intended to give notice of approaching danger; a warning sound to arouse attention; a warning of danger. "Sound an alarm in my holy mountain."
3.
A sudden attack; disturbance; broil. (R.) "These home alarms." "Thy palace fill with insults and alarms."
4.
Sudden surprise with fear or terror excited by apprehension of danger; in the military use, commonly, sudden apprehension of being attacked by surprise. "Alarm and resentment spread throughout the camp."
5.
A mechanical contrivance for awaking persons from sleep, or rousing their attention; an alarum.
Alarm bell, a bell that gives notice on danger.
Alarm clock or Alarm watch, a clock or watch which can be so set as to ring or strike loudly at a prearranged hour, to wake from sleep, or excite attention.
Alarm gauge, a contrivance attached to a steam boiler for showing when the pressure of steam is too high, or the water in the boiler too low.
Alarm post, a place to which troops are to repair in case of an alarm.
Synonyms: Fright; affright; terror; trepidation; apprehension; consternation; dismay; agitation; disquiet; disquietude. Alarm, Fright, Terror, Consternation. These words express different degrees of fear at the approach of danger. Fright is fear suddenly excited, producing confusion of the senses, and hence it is unreflecting. Alarm is the hurried agitation of feeling which springs from a sense of immediate and extreme exposure. Terror is agitating and excessive fear, which usually benumbs the faculties. Consternation is overwhelming fear, and carries a notion of powerlessness and amazement. Alarm agitates the feelings; terror disorders the understanding and affects the will; fright seizes on and confuses the sense; consternation takes possession of the soul, and subdues its faculties. See Apprehension.


verb
Alarm  v. t.  (past & past part. alarmed; pres. part. alarming)  
1.
To call to arms for defense; to give notice to (any one) of approaching danger; to rouse to vigilance and action; to put on the alert.
2.
To keep in excitement; to disturb.
3.
To surprise with apprehension of danger; to fill with anxiety in regard to threatening evil; to excite with sudden fear. "Alarmed by rumors of military preparation."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Alarm" Quotes from Famous Books



... Rhine, behind which the camp had been made. A fog came down over the moor; the first ditch was crossed successfully, but the guide missing his way caused some confusion before the second was reached, during which a pistol was discharged that aroused a sentinel, who rode off and gave the alarm. As the royal drums beat to arms Monmouth rapidly advanced, when he suddenly found himself checked by the Bussex Rhine, behind which the royal army was forming in line of battle in the fog. "For whom are you?" demanded a royal officer. "For the king," replied a voice from the rebel cavalry. "For ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... there was only ten thousand dollars in it instead of the fortune that I had supposed was there. I was about to take it out and stuff it into my pocket, when I heard a noise outside the window. Thinking it was Renaud's wolf-dog, and that he might give the alarm, I pushed the box under my coat and ran out the back door. The next day, Corbin—or Langdon—came to me and demanded his share of what I had stolen. He said that he had seen me at the deed box after I had killed the woman, that he had made the noise outside ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... served merely to give us a momentary relief from our alarm, and we determined we would sift the matter to the bottom, and no more expose ourselves to be taken at such disadvantage. We went again to the poem, with our eyes open, and our moral sense as keenly awake ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... what happened in the case of Lady Alicia's emeralds. For two months the regular police were not only befogged, but they blatantly sounded the alarm to every thief in Europe. All the pawnbrokers' shops of Great Britain were ransacked, as if a robber of so valuable a collection would be foolish enough to take it to a pawnbroker. Of course, the ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Militia of the Country have been employed during the summer in Building the Fort at the Falls, & what they call a Row Galley which has made one trip up the River to the Mouth of the big Miamis & occasioned that alarm that created us so much trouble, she carries one six pounder, six four pounders & two two pounders & Row's eighty oars, she had at the big Bone Lick one hundred men but being chiefly draughts from the Militia many of them ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt


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