urchin
English
Alternative forms
- urchon (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English yrchoun, irchoun (“hedgehog”), borrowed from Old Northern French irechon, from Vulgar Latin *ērīciōnem, from Latin ericius. Compare modern French hérisson, whence the English doublet herisson.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɜːtʃɪn/, /ˈɜːtʃən/
- (General American) enPR: ûrʹchĭn, IPA(key): /ˈɝt͡ʃɪn/, /ˈɝt͡ʃən/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)tʃɪn
- Hyphenation: ur‧chin, urchin
Noun
urchin (plural urchins)
- A mischievous child.
- 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 7, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, OCLC 6868219:
- And like these fresh green things were the dozens of babies, tots, toddlers, noisy urchins, laughing girls, a whole multitude of children of one family. For Collier Brandt, the father of all this numerous progeny, was a Mormon with four wives.
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- A street urchin, a child who lives, or spends most of their time, in the streets.
- a. 1879, William Howitt, "The Wind in a Frolic"
- And the urchins that stand with their thievish eyes / Forever on watch ran off each with a prize.
- a. 1879, William Howitt, "The Wind in a Frolic"
- 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.
- 1836, Andrew Ure, The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain […] :
- Here we have a carding-engine, with the drum surmounted with urchin or squirrel cards […]
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- (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.
- c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The Merry VViues of VVindsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iv]:
- We'll dress [them] like urchins, ouphes, and fairies.
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Related terms
- sea urchin
- street urchin
Translations
mischievous child
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street urchin — see street urchin
sea urchin — see sea urchin
Anagrams
- chunri, unrich