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tocsin. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
tocsin, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
tocsin in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
tocsin you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French, from Old French toquesain (modern tocsin), from Old Occitan tocasenh, from tocar (“strike, touch”) + senh (“bell”).
Pronunciation
Noun
tocsin (plural tocsins)
- 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.
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.
- A bell used to sound an alarm.
Translations
an alarm or other signal sounded by a bell
Further reading
Anagrams
French
Etymology
Inherited from Old French toquesain, borrowed from Old Occitan tocasenh, from tocar (“strike, touch”) + senh (“bell”).
Pronunciation
Noun
tocsin m (plural tocsins)
- an alarm, a tocsin
october 1972, Georges Brassens (lyrics and music), “La ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part”: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
Anagrams
Romanian
Etymology
Borrowed from French tocsin.
Noun
tocsin n (plural tocsine)
- tocsin
Declension