tocsin

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɒksɪn/
• Rhymes: -ɒksɪn
• Homophone: toxin

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.

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

• Costin, sintoc, tonics

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

• IPA^(key): /tɔksɛ̃/

tocsin m (plural tocsins)

1. an alarm, a tocsin

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

• citons, tonics