False Alarm Meaning

(archaic, idiomatic) A person who pretends to be more accomplished or a thing that seems to be of higher quality than is later found to be the case.

Example: 1895, G. A. Henty, Wulf the Saxon, ch. 9:
  "Then, if they rise, shout the alarm at the top of your voice . . . but be careful not to rouse the camp by a false alarm, for if you do, instead of gaining credit we shall become the jest of the whole force."
2013 Feb. 25, David Epstein, "Pistorius: The Man, The Myth," Sports Illustrated (retrieved 18 April 2015):
  Pistorius explained that a security alarm in his house had gone off the previous night, and that he had taken a gun downstairs to investigate what turned out to be a false alarm.
1819, Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, ch. 13:
  John then opened the billet with apparent agitation, which visibly and greatly increased when he had perused the contents. . . .
  "This may be a false alarm, or a forged letter," said De Bracy.
1905, Fergus Hume, The Secret Passage, ch. 6:
  Cuthbert had often been summoned to her dying bed, only to find that she was alive and well. He expected that this summons would be another false alarm.
2000 Jan. 9, "A Night To Remember," Newsweek (retrieved 18 April 2015):
  Robert Swanson . . . expected civilization to melt down on Jan. 1, 2000. . . . He's not sure yet that Y2K was a false alarm.
1911, William MacLeod Raine, Mavericks, ch. 22:
  "I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are even a rustler! You're a false alarm!"
1912, G. Harvey Ralphson, Boy Scouts in a Submarine, ch. 2:
  "He's an old false alarm, anyway. I'll bet he never heard a real gun go off!"
1913, Rex Ellingwood Beach, The Iron Trail, ch. 5:
  "I had a good job, putting in a power plant for his nibs"—he indicated the retreating Gordon with a disrespectful jerk of the thumb—"but I quit. . . . Do you think I'd work for this four-flusher if you were in the country?" . . .
  "You think Gordon is a false alarm?"
1921, P. G. Wodehouse, Jill the Reckless, ch. 4:
  "I only came over here to see that darned false alarm of a play of mine put on."