Alarm

The derivation of *alarm*, and the French *alarme*, from *à l'arme*, which your correspondent M. has reproduced, has always struck me as unsatisfactory, and as of the class of etymologies suspiciously ingenious. I do not venture to pronounce that the derivation is wrong: I merely wish to ventilate a doubt through "NOTES AND QUERIES," and invite some of your more learned readers to lily to decide the question. Of the identity of the words *alarm* and *alarum* there is no doubt. The verb *alarm* is spelt *alarum* in old writers, and I have seen it so spelt in manuscripts of Charles II.'s reign,…