siren

Etymology

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. Doublet of serin.

noun

1. (Greek mythology) One of a group of nymphs who lured mariners to their death on the rocks.
   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 . Whoever draws near without knowledge and ... 2008-10-07, Homer, The Odyssey, North Atlantic Books, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 278
2. One who sings sweetly and charms.
3. A dangerously seductive woman.
4. A member of Sirenia, an order of mammals.
5. A member of a genus of aquatic salamanders of the family Sirenidae, commonly used for all species in the family Sirenidae.
6. Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Hestina.
7. A device, either mechanical or electronic, that makes a piercingly loud sound as an alarm or signal, or the sound from such a device (first recorded 1879).
   My attention was diverted from this sight by a furious yelling, like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns. 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 103
   1984, Steve Harris, "Aces High", Iron Maiden, Powerslave. There goes the siren that warns of the air raid / Then comes the sound of the guns sending flak / Out for the scramble we've got to get airborne / Got to get up for the coming attack.
8. (music) A musical instrument, one of the few aerophones in the percussion section of the symphony orchestra (patented as Acme Siren in 1895).
9. An instrument for demonstrating the laws of beats and combination tones.
10. (astronomy, astrophysics) An astrophysical event that can be used for calculating cosmic distances.
    2017, B.P. Abbott, “A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

verb

1. To make a noise with, or as if with, a siren.

adj

1. Relating to or like a siren.