urchin

noun

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

1. A hedgehog.
2. A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.

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

3. A mischievous child.

   “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.”

4. A street urchin, a child who lives, or spends most of their time, in the streets.

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

5. A sea urchin.
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.

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

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