"siren song" meaning in English

See siren song in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-siren song.ogg [Australia] Forms: siren songs [plural]
Etymology: From the songs of the sirens in Greek mythology, whose bewitching song lured mariners to their doom. Head templates: {{en-noun}} siren song (plural siren songs)
  1. (idiomatic) An enticing but dangerous appeal, especially a misleading one. Wikipedia link: Siren (mythology) Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: allure, enticement, siren call, temptation, Siren song, Siren's song, siren's song, sirensong Related terms: clarion call Translations (enticing but dangerous appeal): seireenien laulu (Finnish), canto della sirena [masculine] (Italian), canto de sirena [masculine] (Spanish), sirensång [common-gender] (Swedish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for siren song meaning in English (2.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the songs of the sirens in Greek mythology, whose bewitching song lured mariners to their doom.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "siren songs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "siren song (plural siren songs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1914, Jack London, “The Sea Farmer”, in The Strength of the Strong",
          "text": "Romance never sang to him her siren song, and Adventure had never shouted in his sluggish blood.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009 March 26, Michael Elliott, “Global Trade: The Road to Ruin”, in Time",
          "text": "Said World Bank president Robert Zoellick: \"Leaders must not heed the siren song of protectionist fixes. Economic isolationism can lead to a negative spiral of events.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An enticing but dangerous appeal, especially a misleading one."
      ],
      "id": "en-siren_song-en-noun-Vc7YZv1W",
      "links": [
        [
          "enticing",
          "enticing"
        ],
        [
          "dangerous",
          "dangerous"
        ],
        [
          "appeal",
          "appeal"
        ],
        [
          "misleading",
          "misleading"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An enticing but dangerous appeal, especially a misleading one."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "clarion call"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "allure"
        },
        {
          "word": "enticement"
        },
        {
          "word": "siren call"
        },
        {
          "word": "temptation"
        },
        {
          "word": "Siren song"
        },
        {
          "word": "Siren's song"
        },
        {
          "word": "siren's song"
        },
        {
          "word": "sirensong"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
          "word": "seireenien laulu"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "canto della sirena"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "canto de sirena"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "sirensång"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Siren (mythology)"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-siren song.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/2b/En-au-siren_song.ogg/En-au-siren_song.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/En-au-siren_song.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "siren song"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the songs of the sirens in Greek mythology, whose bewitching song lured mariners to their doom.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "siren songs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "siren song (plural siren songs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "clarion call"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms derived from Greek mythology",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1914, Jack London, “The Sea Farmer”, in The Strength of the Strong",
          "text": "Romance never sang to him her siren song, and Adventure had never shouted in his sluggish blood.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009 March 26, Michael Elliott, “Global Trade: The Road to Ruin”, in Time",
          "text": "Said World Bank president Robert Zoellick: \"Leaders must not heed the siren song of protectionist fixes. Economic isolationism can lead to a negative spiral of events.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An enticing but dangerous appeal, especially a misleading one."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "enticing",
          "enticing"
        ],
        [
          "dangerous",
          "dangerous"
        ],
        [
          "appeal",
          "appeal"
        ],
        [
          "misleading",
          "misleading"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An enticing but dangerous appeal, especially a misleading one."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Siren (mythology)"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-siren song.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/2b/En-au-siren_song.ogg/En-au-siren_song.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/En-au-siren_song.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "allure"
    },
    {
      "word": "enticement"
    },
    {
      "word": "siren call"
    },
    {
      "word": "temptation"
    },
    {
      "word": "Siren song"
    },
    {
      "word": "Siren's song"
    },
    {
      "word": "siren's song"
    },
    {
      "word": "sirensong"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
      "word": "seireenien laulu"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "canto della sirena"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "canto de sirena"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "enticing but dangerous appeal",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "sirensång"
    }
  ],
  "word": "siren song"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.