noun
definition
An alarm or other signal sounded by a bell or bells, originally especially with reference to France.
definition
A bell used to sound an alarm.
Examples of tocsin in a Sentence
They sounded the tocsin, mustered their partisans, and released the prisoners.
His demand for immediate emancipation fell like a tocsin upon the ears of slaveholders.
On the 1st of September the Commune decreed that on the following day the tocsin should be rung, all ablebodied citizens convened in the Champs de Mars, and 60,000 volunteers enrolled for the defence of the country.
At the close of this troubled century peace descends upon exhausted passions; and amidst the choir of young and ardent voices celebrating the national reconciliation, the tocsin no longer sounds its sinister and persistent bass.
His arrest was decreed; but he had the generale sounded and the tocsin rung, and tried to rescue Robespierre, who was under arrest in the hall of the Comite de Siirete Generale.