Words / T / General

tocsin

noun/ˈtɒksɪn/

C2CEFR level
92/100Rarity: very rare
LiteraryRegister

An alarm bell or signal sounded to warn of danger.

The watchman rang the tocsin the moment he saw smoke rising from the mill.

Similar: alarm, warning bell

Origin: From Old Provençal tocasenh, from tocar 'to touch, strike' + senh 'bell'.

Topic: alarm sound in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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