1832: alarm and alert Dec 21, 2019

If you’ve ever dreaded your morning alarm, you probably didn’t dread it as much as those who created the word incidentally. The word comes originally as an exclamation, initially from Italian ‘allarme’ and then eventually brought to English from “all’ arme” meaning “to arms” used in the military (and not “all arm!“ though that is not so different). It is not related to ‘alert', from “à l’erte” though the two are connected insofar as they are both compounds, this one meaning “to the watchtower”.

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