alarums and excursions

alarums and excursions

Frantic activity that causes a clamor. Often seen in Elizabethan drama as a stage direction denoting military activity. What on earth is going on? The alarums and excursions in the living room woke me from a sound sleep—keep it down!
See also: and, excursion
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • excursion
  • alarms and excursions
  • practice on
  • practice on (someone or something)
  • gamekeeper
  • old poacher makes the best gamekeeper
  • poacher
  • an old poacher makes the best gamekeeper
  • settle down to (something)
  • snitcher
References in periodicals archive
Today the Heber Valley below Timpanogos is witness to no such alarums and excursions. The mountain looms in primeval splendor, its tip as yet untouched by fire.
On the edge of the Great Basin
There are alarums and excursions featuring a parrot and a defibrilator, and the scene closes with Eddie dragged hither and thither by a fearsomely realistic wild boar, kept by the pair for its nourishing milk.
Bottom returns to the stage