klaxon
/ˈklæksən/ noun, verb
Forms klaxons klaxoning klaxoned claxon
- noun A loud electric alarm or horn, especially as used in automobiles in the early 20th century.
- verb (intransitive) To produce a loud, siren-like wail.
Synonyms
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).
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “klaxon”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details