urchin

Meaning

Noun

• 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.
• A neutron-generating device that triggered the nuclear detonation of the earliest plutonium atomic bombs.
• A hedgehog.
• A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.

Origin

• From Middle English yrchoun, irchoun, borrowed from Old Northern French irechon, variant of herichun, (compare central Old French heriçun, heriçon; modern hérisson), from Vulgar Latin *ericio, from Latin ericius ("hedgehog"). herisson.