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klaxon.

A loud electric alarm or horn, especially as used in automobiles in the early 20th century.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈklæksən/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A loud electric alarm or horn, especially as used in automobiles in the early 20th century.

Where this word comes from

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).

verb/ˈklæksən/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. To produce a loud, siren-like wail.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

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).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.