urchin

Meaning

1. A mischievous child.
2. A street urchin, a child who lives, or spends most of their time, in the streets.
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.
5. 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.

Synonyms

imp

👿

sea urchin

boy

👦

mischief

greenhorn

sea-urchin

mischievous child

hedgehog

🦔

street child

hurcheon

playfulness

ragamuffin

rascal

scamp

brat

small boy

tatterdemalion

troublemaker

wag

waif

good-for-naught

brown eyes

young lad

hedge-hog

dandiprat

sea-hedgehog

gamine

dunderhead

git

goblin

gutter-snipe

chap

Hyphenated as

ur‧chin

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈɜːtʃɪn/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: yrchoun

Cognate with French: hérisson

In summary

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.