tocsin

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): /ˈtɒksɪn/
• Rhymes: -ɒksɪn
• 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 August 23, The Times, 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.

   • 1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “In London”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book I (The Coming of the Martians), page 131:

     The noise of drumming and trumpeting came from the Albany Street Barracks, and every church within earshot was hard at work killing sleep with a vehement disorderly tocsin.

   • 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, published 2007, page 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.

   • 2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 3, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part II. The Neoliberal Order, 1970–2020:

     Allen Ginsberg had sounded the tocsin for rescuing humanity from the deadening hand of modernity, which he saw in terms of capitalism, materialism, and monotony, each contributing to the crushing of the human spirit.

2. A bell used to sound an alarm.

Translations

an alarm or other signal sounded by a bell

• Bulgarian: сигнал с камбана (signal s kambana)
• Finnish: kellonsoitto (fi)
• French: tocsin (fr) m
• German: Alarmsignal (de) n, Glockenalarm m
• Italian: segnale d'allarme m
• Romanian: semnal de alarmă (ro) n
• Russian: наба́т (ru) m (nabát)
• Spanish: rebato (es) m
• Walloon: ban-cloke (wa) f

bell

• Finnish: hälytyskello (fi)
• German: Alarmglocke (de) f
• Italian: campana d'allarme f
• Romanian: clopot de alarmă n
• Russian: наба́т (ru) m (nabát)
• Walloon: ban-cloke (wa) f

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• Costin, sintoc, tonics

French

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɔk.sɛ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

tocsin m (plural tocsins)

1. an alarm, a tocsin
   • october 1972, Georges Brassens (lyrics and music), “La ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part”‎^[1]:

     Quand sonne le tocsin sur leur bonheur précaire
     Contre les étrangers tous plus ou moins barbares
     Ils sortent de leur trou pour mourir à la guerre
     Les imbéciles heureux qui sont nés quelque part
     Les imbéciles heureux qui sont nés quelque part.

     When the tocsin sets off on their precarious bliss
     Against all the foreigners, more or less barbaric
     They get out of their hole, to die in the blitz
     The happy imbeciles, who were born god knows where.
     The happy imbeciles, who were born god knows where.

Further reading

• “tocsin”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• citons, tonics

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French tocsin.

Noun

tocsin n (plural tocsine)

1. tocsin

Declension

Declension of tocsin

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) tocsin	tocsinul	(niște) tocsine	tocsinele
genitive/dative	(unui) tocsin	tocsinului	(unor) tocsine	tocsinelor
vocative	tocsinule		tocsinelor