siren [ME] In classical mythology the Sirens were bird-women whose beautiful singing lured sailors to their doom on submerged rocks. People hear a siren song [LME] or siren call when they are attracted to something that is both alluring and potentially harmful or dangerous. In 1819 the French engineer and physicist Charles Cagniard de la Tour used siren as the name for his invention of an acoustic instrument for producing musical tones. Later in the century steamships began to use a much larger instrument on the same lines as a foghorn or warning device, and in the Second World War sirens sent people scurrying to bomb-shelters for protection from air raids. The phrase siren suit from the 1930s was from its use as a one-piece garment for women in air-raid shelters.