Klaxon
proper noun
- trademark used for an electrically operated horn or warning signal
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈklæksən/
noun
Etymology: From the trademark Klaxon, based on Ancient Greek κλάζω (klázō, “make a sharp sound; scream”). 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).
- A loud electric alarm or horn, especially as used in automobiles in the early 20th century.
“And she went so swiftly that he could only follow her to the door. The large shape of the car swallowed her up; and the car twisted softly around the little drive and away to the London road. Minutes later he heard its Klaxon, just one sharp keen, like the harsh cry of a sea-bird. …”
“There was a motor car behind them now and it blasted into the truck noise and the dust with its klaxon again and again; then flashed on lights that showed the dust like a solid yellow cloud and surged past them in a whining rise of gears and a demanding, threatening, bludgeoning of klaxoning.”
verb
Etymology: From the trademark Klaxon, based on Ancient Greek κλάζω (klázō, “make a sharp sound; scream”). 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).
- To produce a loud, siren-like wail.
“He headed down the Embankment. It was noon precisely. Big Ben klaxoned the hour with blasts of servo whistle.”
“Suffering. It was like a great discordant symphony ringing out from the world; like a klaxoning of a million million cracked bells.”