urchin

• urchon (obsolete)

From Middle English yrchoun, irchoun (“hedgehog; sea urchin”), from Old Northern French irechon, from Vulgar Latin *ērīciōnem, from Latin ericius. Compare modern French hérisson, whence the English doublet herisson.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɜːtʃɪn/, /ˈɜːtʃən/
• (General American) enPR: ûrʹchĭn, IPA^(key): /ˈɝt͡ʃɪn/, /ˈɝt͡ʃən/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)tʃɪn
• Hyphenation: ur‧chin, urchin

urchin (plural urchins)

1. A mischievous child.
   • 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 7, in Riders of the Purple Sage , New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:

     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.

2. 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.

3. A sea urchin.
4. 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 […]

5. (historical) A neutron-generating device that triggered the nuclear detonation of the earliest plutonium atomic bombs.
6. (obsolete) A hedgehog.
7. (obsolete) A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     We'll dress like urchins, ouphes, and fairies.

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Urchin”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume X, Part 1 (Ti–U), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, pages 454–455.

• chunri, unrich