different between tocsin vs klaxon

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French, from Old French toquesain (modern tocsin), from Old Occitan tocasenh, from tocar (“strike, touch”) + senh (“bell”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?ks?n/
• Rhymes: -?ks?n
• Homophone: toxin

Noun

tocsin (plural tocsins)

1. An alarm or other signal sounded by a bell or bells, originally 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

See also

• Tocsin in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Costin, sintoc, tonics

French

Etymology

From Old French toquesain, borrowed from Old Occitan tocasenh, from tocar (“strike, touch”) + senh (“bell”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?k.s??/

Noun

tocsin m (plural tocsins)

1. an alarm, a tocsin

Further reading

• “tocsin” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• citons, tonics

Romanian

Etymology

From French tocsin.

Noun

tocsin n (plural tocsine)

1. tocsin

Declension

English

Etymology

From the trademark Klaxon, based on Ancient Greek ????? (kláz?, “make a sharp sound; scream”) (from Proto-Indo-European *glag- (“to make a noise, clap, twitter”), from *gal- (“to roop, scream, shout”)). 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).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?klæks(?)n/
• Rhymes: -æks?n
• Hyphenation: klax?on

Noun

klaxon (plural klaxons)

1. A loud electric alarm or horn. [from 1908]

Alternative forms

• claxon

Translations

Verb

klaxon (third-person singular simple present klaxons, present participle klaxoning, simple past and past participle klaxoned)

1. (intransitive) To produce a loud, siren-like wail.

Derived terms

• klaxoning (noun)

Notes

References

Further reading

• vehicle horn – klaxon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English klaxon. Genericized trademark.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klak.s?n/, /klak.s??/

Noun

klaxon m (plural klaxons)

1. horn (of car)

Derived terms

• klaxonner

Further reading

• “klaxon” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English klaxon.

Noun

klaxon m (plural klaxons)

1. klaxon (a type of loud electric horn)

   Synonyms: cláxon, clácson