urchin
English
/ˈɜːtʃɪn/, /ˈɝtʃɪn/
noun
Definitions
- A mischievous child.
- A street urchin, a child who lives, or spends most of their time, in the streets.
- A sea urchin.
- One of a pair in a series of small card cylinders arranged around a carding drum; so called from its fancied resemblance to the hedgehog.
- (historical) A neutron-generating device that triggered the nuclear detonation of the earliest plutonium atomic bombs.
- (obsolete) A hedgehog.
- (obsolete) A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English yrchoun derived from irechon derived from Old French heriçun derived from Latin ericionem, *ericio, ericius (hedgehog).
Origin
Latin
ericius
Gloss
hedgehog
Concept
Semantic Field
Animals
Ontological Category
Person/Thing
Emoji
Timeline
Distribution of cognates by language
Geogrpahic distribution of cognates
Cognates and derived terms
- nano-urchin English
- sea English
- sea urchin English
- urchinlike English
- ericionem, *ericio Latin
- ericius Latin
- ēricius Latin
- hérisson French
- erizo Spanish, Castilian
- *ǵʰḗr Proto-Indo-European
- yrchoun Middle English
- *eriz Old French
- heriçun Old French
- hérisson Norman
- irechon ONF.