Meaning

noun a sea nymph (part woman and part bird) supposed to lure sailors to destruction on the rocks where the nymphs lived

noun a woman who is considered to be dangerously seductive

noun a warning signal that is a loud wailing sound

originFrom Middle English siren, from Old French sereine and Latin Sīrēn, Sīrēna, from Ancient Greek Σειρήν (Seirḗn). The mammalian sense was first attested in French in Dominique Bouhours, Les entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène, in 1671. The aquatic salamander sense was originally introduced by Linnaeus in 1766, for a genus of his reptiles.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0