siren: mid-14c., in classical mythology, “sea nymph who by her singing lures sailors to their destruction,” from Old French sereine (12c., Modern French sirène) and directly from Latin Siren (Late Latin Sirena), from Greek Seiren [“Odyssey,” xii.39 ff.], one of the Seirēnes, the mythical sisters who enticed sailors to their deaths with their songs, also in Greek “a deceitful woman,” perhaps literally “binder, entangler,” from seira “cord, rope.”