alarm bell
"alarm-bell" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“alarm bell” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A sudden awareness of danger.
Corpus desk
Index EN-alarm-bell · alarm bell · English
alarm bell · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | alarm bell |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “alarm bell” in English
Rare enough to double-check
alarm bell is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
alarm bell has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is alarm bell, spelled A-L-A-R-M- -B-E-L-L.
Definition
- 1A sudden awareness of danger.
- 2Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see alarm, bell.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how alarm bell appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The specter of women in factories, women in schoolrooms, and women attending — a lot less addressing — public meetings set off alarm bells in the South.
I only got a glimpse of him, but alarm bells went off. He wasn't rushing over to give me a pat on the back for stopping to help.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.