cry havoc

cry havoc

To sound a warning or alarm of impending chaos, danger, or disaster. "Havoc" was originally a military order in the Middle Ages for soldiers to pillage and cause destruction; it features most famously in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." The governor cried havoc as the protest became increasingly violent. With the hurricane approaching the city, officials cried havoc and urged citizens to seek shelter.
See also: cry, havoc
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

cry havoc

Sound an alarm or warning, as in In his sermon the pastor cried havoc to the congregation's biases against gays. The noun havoc was once a command for invaders to begin looting and killing the defenders' town. Shakespeare so used it in Julius Caesar (3:1): "Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war." By the 19th century the phrase had acquired its present meaning.
See also: cry, havoc
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

cry havoc

To sound an alarm; warn.
See also: cry, havoc
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
See also:
  • havoc
  • sound the alarm
  • spell disaster
  • spell disaster Fig
  • wreak havoc
  • wreak
  • play havoc
  • play havoc with
  • play havoc with (someone or something)
  • play/wreak havoc with something
References in periodicals archive
As the components I chose were not on the approved list from Cry Havoc, I found that the supplied gas tube was perhaps l/8th inch too long to allow the barrel to mate with the receiver.
It takes a village: the motley parentage of the ultimate pocket AR
Lankford's recent work entitled Cry Havoc! The Crooked Road to the Civil War, 1861.
Introduction
Cry Havoc is a suspenseful novel about an impending oil crises that threatens to derail the free world.
Cry Havoc
Bella Books congratulates Baxter Clare on the Lambda Literary Award nomination of her book Cry Havoc, the latest in the critically acclaimed Detective Franco series.
2003 Lambda literary award nominees
Adams' immediate build-up to the opening game has included reading Henry V, the apt story of a patriotic leader who overcomes a troubled youth to fulfil his destiny at the battle of Agincourt amid the call to "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war".
Adams is ready to last the course; EURO 2000
Workshop attendees are reassured that they won't have to learn reams of text, nor will they be leaping on desks urging underlings to "cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war".
All the world's a stage - including the boardroom, says Olivier; Alison Jones finds out how a top director is showing managers some nifty moves
To misquote William Shakespeare, "Cry havoc! And let loose the dogs of war!
Olympic gold isn't just about medals
Equally fitting was the resonant quote from Shakespeare in Laughing Lions: the phrase "Cry havoc," which should be completed, as in Julius Caesar, "let slip the dogs of war."
Leon Golub
Unable to see themselves as members of a national collectivity, the product of one polity larger than a tribe, together they cry havoc and together they rend the others' flesh.
South Sudan on the brink of collapse
(SKY MOVIES SCIFI/ HORROR) 4.45pm Cry Havoc. (PG) (1943) (b&w) Second World War drama, starring Margaret Sullavan.
MOVIE CHOICE