siren

英 ['saɪr(ə)n] 美['saɪrən]

CET6+TEM4GRE考研CET6低频词常用词汇

复数: sirens;

siren 塞ft，性感妖女，汽笛，警笛，警报器

来自拉丁语 Siren,来自希腊语 Seiren,塞ft，古希腊神话中居住于海岛上的精灵，通过诱惑性的歌声吸引水手将船只划向她们所在岛屿处的万丈海渊。其名字字面意思可能为绑定者，捆绑者，来自 seira,绳子，绳索，词源同 series.引申词义汽笛，警笛，警报器等。

siren: siren: [14] The Seirēnes were sea nymphs who, according to Greek mythology, sat on rocks luring impressionable sailors to their doom with the sweetness of their singing. Latin took the word over as sīrēna, and it passed into English via Old French sereine. The term was applied to an acoustical instrument invented in 1819 by Cagniard de la Tour, that produced musical sounds and was used for measuring the frequency of sound waves, and it was this that formed the basis of its later use (in the 1870s) for a device for giving loud warning signals.
siren (n.): mid-14c., "sea nymph who by her singing lures sailors to their destruction," from Old French sereine (12c., Modern French sirène) and directly from Latin Siren (Late Latin Sirena), from Greek Seiren ["Odyssey," xii.39 ff.], one of the Seirenes, mythical sisters who enticed sailors to their deaths with their songs, also in Greek "a deceitful woman," perhaps literally "binder, entangler," from seira "cord, rope."

Meaning "device that makes a warning sound" (on an ambulance, etc.) first recorded 1879, in reference to steamboats, perhaps from similar use of the French word. Figurative sense of "one who sings sweetly and charms" is recorded from 1580s. The classical descriptions of them were mangled in medieval translations and glosses, resulting in odd notions of what they looked like.

1. People were awakened rudely by a siren just outside their window.: 人们被窗外传来的汽笛声猛然惊醒了。