Definition of "siren" [si•ren]

• A device in which compressed air or steam is driven against a rotating perforated disk to create a loud, often wailing sound as a signal or warning. (noun)
• An electronic device producing a similar sound as a signal or warning: a police car siren. (noun)
• Any of several salamanders of the family Sirenidae, such as the mud eel, having an eellike body, permanent external gills, small forelegs, and no hind limbs. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Voices yell at her as she shoves and struggles, they curse, someone hits her with an umbrella, but she does not care, the siren is screaming and she must get away, she must, she must, she must."
• "The second one I snapped into place shaped my chesticles into the kind of cone-shape you'd be likely to see on a screen siren from the 1940's."
• "The siren is another name for mermaids who lure sailors to their deaths upon the rocks of the tumultuous ocean."