Forms: 4 claryoun(e, -ounn(e, clarioune, 4–5 -oun, 5 -onne, claryowne, 5–6 claryon, 4– clarion. [a. OF. claron, cleron, clairon; in med.L. clāriōn-em, clārōn-em, f. clārus clear. Italian has in same sense clarino, chiarina: cf. CLARINE.]
1. A shrill-sounding trumpet with a narrow tube, formerly much used as a signal in war. (Now chiefly poetical, or in historical narrative.)
c. 1325. [see 5 a.]
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, III. 150. Blody soun In trumpe, beme and clarioun. Ibid. (c. 1386), Knt.’s T., 1653. Pypes, trompes, hakerers, Clariounes That in the bataille blowen blody sounes.
1388. Wyclif, Jer. iv. 21. Hou longe shal Y se hem that fleen, schal Y here the vois of a clarioun?
1475. Caxton, Jason, 89. Trompettes, claryons, tabours and other instruments.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., XXXVI. xxiii. Many a clarion Began to blowe.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Clarion, a kind of small straight mouthed, and shrill sounding Trumpet.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 532. The warlike sound Of Trumpets loud and Clarions.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Wks. (1764), I. 22. Fame, her clarion pendent at her side.
1871. Palgrave, Lyr. Poems, 138. Silver clarions menacing loudly.
fig. 1867. Emerson, May-Day, &c. Wks. (Bohn), III. 477. Byron’s clarion of disdain.
2. Her. A bearing shaped somewhat like a clarion.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Clarion, Guillim takes these Clarions to be a Kind of old-fashion Trumpet; but others think they rather represent the Rudder of a Ship, or, as some say, the Rest for a Lance.
1766. Porny, Heraldry (1787), 187. Ruby, three Clarions Topaz.
3. poet. The sound of a trumpet; any similar rousing sound, as the crowing of a cock.
1667. Milton, P. L., VII. 443. The crested Cock whose clarion sounds The silent hours.
1728. Pope, Dunc., II. 226. The loud clarion of the braying Ass.
1750. Gray, Elegy, v. The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn.
1776. Mickle, trans. Camoens’ Lusiad, 76. The trump and fyfe’s shrill clarion far around The glorious music of the fight resound.
1858. Longf., Poems, Daybreak. O Chanticleer, Your Clarion blow; the day is near.
1878. E. Jenkins, Haverholme, 7. That to which for long humane and Christian people had shut their ears … sounded forth with an irrepressible clarion.
4. A four-feet organ-stop of quality of tone similar to that of the clarion.
c. 1670. Organ Specif., in Grove, Dict. Mus., II. 593/1. Great Organ. 12 stops…. 12. Clarion. Ibid. (1722–4), II. 596/2. Choir Organ … Clarion, from Great Organ, by communication.
1876. Hiles, Catech. Organ, x. (1878), 72. Clarion, Clarin, Clarino, a Reed-stop similar to the Trumpet, but of 4 feet, both on the Manual and Pedal [of the organ].
5. attrib. a. Of or pertaining to a clarion.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1210. Loude alarom vpon launde lulted was þenne … Cler claryoun crak cryed on-lofte.
1811. Scott, D. Roderick, lxii. Fame, with clarion blast and wings unfurled … awakes an injured World.
1838. Marg. Fuller, Wom. 19th C. (1862), 358. Like the clarion-call On battlefield.
b. Sounding like the clarion, loud and clear.
184[?]. Longf., Excelsior, iv. Loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 371. The Whitworth rifle … was introduced to the world with a clarion flourish from the Times.
1879. F. Harrison, Choice Bks., 27. In the quaint lines of Cowper, or the clarion couplets of Pope.
