siren

CEFRB1

/ˈsaɪəɹən/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A loud warning device; a creature in old stories that lured sailors.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A dangerously seductive woman.

Examples

  • The bandits ran away when they heard the police siren.

  • The noon siren is blowing.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
2
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. One who sings sweetly and charms.

  2. One of a group of nymphs who lured mariners to their death on the rocks.

  3. A member of Sirenia, an order of mammals.

More examples

In context

  • The siren sounded an emergency.

  • My attention was diverted from this sight by a furious yelling, like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns.

  • Now give ear to what I'm about to say to you, / and a god himself will bring it before your mind. / First, you will come to the Sirens. / These beings enthrall all men who arrive before them. […]

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The ambulance's loud wailing blank could be heard from many miles away.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English siren, from Old French sereine and Latin Sīrēn, Sīrēna, from Ancient Greek Σειρήν (Seirḗn). The mammalian sense was first attested in French in Dominique Bouhours, Les entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène, in 1671. The aquatic salamander sense was originally introduced by Linnaeus in 1766, for a genus of his reptiles.