Urchin

Definitions

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.
   historical
6. A hedgehog.
   obsolete
7. A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.
   obsolete

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

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

“Here we have⟳ a carding-engine, with the drum surmounted with urchin or squirrel cards[…]”

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

CEFR level