clarion

noun

1. (historical, poetic)A medieval brass instrument chiefly used as a battle signal; related to the trumpet, it had a narrow, straight pipe and a high-pitched, piercing sound.

   “The clarion’s call to action has been heard.”

   “Then ſtrait commands that at the warlike ſound / Of Trumpets loud and Clarions be upreard / His mighty Standard; […]”

   “And like a silver clarion rung / The accents of that unknown tongue, / Excelsior!”

   “There is no bard in all the choir, / Nor Homer's self, the poet sire, / […] / Nor Collins' verse of tender pain, / Nor Byron's clarion of disdain, / […] / Not one of all can put in verse, / Or to this presence could rehearse, / The sights and voices ravishing / The boy knew on the hills in spring, […]”

   “Blind me, take away mine eyes, and let the darkness utterly fence me in, and still mine ears would catch the tone of thy unforgotten voice, striking more loud against the portals of my sense than can the call of brazen-throated clarions:– […]”

2. (broadly, poetic)The sound of a clarion (sense 1), or any sound resembling the loud, high-pitched note of a clarion.

   “Others [i.e., other birds] on ground / Walk'd firm; the creſted Cock whoſe clarion ſounds / The ſilent hours, and th' other whoſe gay Traine / Adorns him, colour'd with the Florid hue / Of Rainbows and Starrie Eyes.”

   “And his this Drum, vvhoſe hoarſe heroic baſe / Drovvns the loud Clarion of the braying Aſs.”

   “The cock's ſhrill clarion, or the ecchoing horn, / No more ſhall rouſe them from their lovvly bed.”

   “[K]indling Nations buckle on their mail, / And Fame, with clarion-blast and wings unfurl'd, / To freedom and revenge awakens an injured World!”

   “O chanticleer, / Your clarion blow; the day is near.”

3. (broadly)An organ stop consisting of pipes with reeds giving a high-pitched note like that of a clarion (sense 1).
4. (broadly)The middle register of the clarinet.
5. A charge thought to represent a type of wind instrument, a keyboard instrument like a spinet, or perhaps a rest used by a knight to support a lance during jousting.

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of a sound, a voice, a message, etc.: brilliantly clear.

   “her clarion top notes”

   “And loud that clarion voice replied / Excelsior!”

   “Clay Hilley brought vocal heft, clarion sound and stamina to the role, though there were stretches where his voice sounded strained, understandably so, given the demands.”

   “The clarion immediacy of Van Gogh’s painting was echoed by his prose.”

verb

1. (rare, transitive)To announce or herald (something) using a clarion (noun sense 1).
2. (figuratively, rare, transitive)To announce or herald (something) using a clarion (noun sense 1).

   “His deep voice clarioned the words and he paused, hearing them whisper away into their last faint echoes in the organ loft.”

   “He [Martin Luther King Jr.] clarioned a call to action that was heard wherever Afro-Christians could be found (and beyond, if one recalls Pentecostalism).”

   “All around me the tamaracks, alder birches and willows would send up amber and golden flares clarioning the winter; […]”

3. (also, figuratively, rare, transitive)Of a thing: to cause (a place) to echo with a sound like that of a clarion.

   “Sir Knight, thy glory clarioneth the heavens.”

4. (intransitive, rare)To sound a clarion; also, to make a high-pitched, piercing sound like that of a clarion.

   “[T]hou, young-bodied morn, / In-ushered by the puffed winds clarioning, / No bond can bind.”

   “We dogs are all a-mourning; but thou [a rooster] clappest thy wings and clarionest thy loudest and treadest hen after hen.”

   “Grey dawn is over, Chrysilla, and ere now the morning cock clarioning leads on the envious Lady of Morn.”

   “[N]ow groaning, now with his eye flashing, now with a tear—undoubtedly a frozen tear—standing in the eye, now clarioning, now sighing, onward and upward he goes: […]”

   “He heard his mother bugling and clarioning outside, and he tried to tell the nurse not to let her in, but no words would come out, no matter how hard he tried.”

name

1. An unincorporated community in Bureau County, Illinois, United States.
2. A city, the county seat of Wright County, Iowa, United States.
3. A borough, the county seat of Clarion County, Pennsylvania, United States.
4. A ghost town in Sanpete County, Utah, United States.
5. A river in Pennsylvania, a tributary of the Allegheny River.