Noun

(en noun)

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 .

A bell used to sound an alarm.

Noun

(en noun)

A loud electric horn or alarm.

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* {{quote-magazine

, date= , year=2010 , month=Nov , first= , last= , author=Brad R. Torgersen , coauthors= , title=Outbound , volume=130 , issue=11 , page=84 , magazine=Analog Science Fiction & Fact , publisher= , issn= , url= , passage=Irenka was up front using the lavatory when the lights in the cabin went red and the klaxon sounded over the speakers. }}