urchin

From Middle English irchoun (“hedgehog”), borrowed from Old Northern French irechon, variant of Old Northern French herichun, Old French heriçun, heriçon (compare modern hérisson), from Vulgar Latin *ericio, ericionem, from Latin ericius (“hedgehog”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɜːtʃɪ̈n/
• (General American) enPR: ûrʹchĭn, IPA^(key): /ˈɝtʃɪ̈n/

• 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: A Novel, 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.

2. A street urchin, a child who lives, or spends most of their time, in the streets.
   • W. Howitt

     And the urchins that stand with their thievish eyes / Forever on watch ran off each with a prize.

3. (archaic) A hedgehog.
   • before 1400, The Romaunt of the Rose, translated from French, partially by Geoffrey Chaucer

     […] Like sharp urchouns his here was growe, / His eyes rede as the fire-glow; […]

4. A sea urchin.
5. A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.
   • Shakespeare

     We'll dress [them] like urchins, ouphes, and fairies.

6. 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.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

7. (historical) A neutron-generating device that triggered the nuclear detonation of the earliest plutonium atomic bombs.

• sea urchin
• street urchin

• chunri, unrich