Etymology

Italian all'arme! (to arms!, to the weapons!) > Latin arma, armorum, weapons.

Quotations

call to arms
1969 : 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. - Michael Arlen, Living Room War

c. 1605: Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene II (stage direction) A camp near Forres. Alarum within.

Verb

1. To sound alarums, to sound an alarm.

Quotations

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 for some reason as a deliberate archaism. Possibly it is retained because of its use in Shakespeare's plays.

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