What Is the Origin of the Word Alarm? Simply put, it means 'to fight.' It's interesting to consider the etymologies of words, how they evolved or where they came from.

Like "hippopotamus," which comes from the ancient Greek hippos, meaning horse, and potamus, meaning river. Thus, by analogy, which is often how words work, a hippopotamus is a "river horse."

You might be asking, but what do hippopotami, or large, chiefly aquatic, African, herbivorous mammals with thick hairless skin, short legs, and ginormous mouths have to do with home security packages!?

Well, the answer is simple. They don't. But if you're still reading, you might be interested in the origin of the word "alarm." And also, if you're in the process of thinking about burglar alarm systems and doing an exhaustive home security comparison, you might want to think about something else for a moment.

So, "alarm" comes from the Old French alarme, which comes from the Old Italian all'arme, meaning, "to the arms." Alarm originally functioned as an interjection or a call to warning, basically someone yelling out that it was time to fight, like our modern burglar alarm systems sort of yell, or sound, or signal, that it's time to "take up arms," to do something, to fight, or at least to call the police.

These days, "alarm" doesn't really mean 'to fight'. It is actually more of a warning.

Which brings up the question of arms and what is the function of arms? Are they here to connect to our hands, which hold our phones and type our text messages? Or are they here to fight? This requires an additional inquiry, i.e. what is the etymology of "arms?"

Well, to put it as simply as possible, the origin of the word "arms" is two-fold, with no real distinctions made about the difference. "Arms" derives from words for the shoulder and elbow, while at the same time words for tools and weapons. This means that from our earliest understanding of our bodies, arms were both tools and weapons in equal measure, which makes sense since they're the most dexterous part of our body parts, given the extension of hands.

Which leads us to words like "army." Is this an adjective describing something arm like? Such as long and twisty, i.e. army tree branches. Or a person with long arms, thus a very army person?

The answer is no. We all know that "army" means a large group of soldiers, which raises the interesting consideration that ever since man became man, his arms have always been weapons, a concept that makes sense when you consider that we were more like animals long ago and had to fight a lot (not to imply that we still don't find easy reasons to fight a lot).

So where does all this lead us when considering burglar alarm systems? Well, that's up to you to decide, but it's curious that our most modern use of arms, which is alarms, is among the least confrontational modes of "raising arms," reflecting the fact that those of us who wish to have alarms are generally peaceable, less animalistic, more civilized.