URCHIN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does urchin mean? 

• URCHIN (noun)
  The noun URCHIN has 1 sense:

1. poor and often mischievous city child

  Familiarity information: URCHIN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• URCHIN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Poor and often mischievous city child

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("urchin" is a kind of...):

child; fry; kid; minor; nestling; nipper; shaver; small fry; tiddler; tike; tyke; youngster (a young person of either sex)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "urchin"):

ragamuffin; tatterdemalion (a dirty shabbily clothed urchin)

guttersnipe; street urchin (a child who spends most of his time in the streets especially in slum areas)

 Context examples 

You little urchin! they said, what can you do for us?

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The crowd of disappointed urchins stared till the carriage disappeared from view, then transferred their stare to Maria, who had abruptly become the most important person on the street.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A. solmonicida is found in freshwater and marine environments and causes furunculosis in fish and bald sea urchin disease.

(Aeromonas salmonicida, NCI Thesaurus)

"Removal of algae grazers such as herbivorous fish and sea urchins leads to increases in macroalgae, which then leads to increased organic carbon, contributing to the degradation of coral reefs," Weber adds.

(Microbes reflect the health of coral reefs, National Science Foundation)

An orally available nutritional supplement and proprietary formulation containing extracts from the sea cucumber, sea sponge, shark fin, sea urchin and the marine grass Sargassum, with potential antioxidant, antitumor, anti-angiogenic and immunomodulating activities.

(Nutraceutical TBL-12, NCI Thesaurus)

Working in the Galapagos Islands, the biologists studied wave motions, conducted underwater experiments and used marine life censuses to evaluate the effects of wave turbulence on sea urchins and fish feeding on algae.

(Galapagos sea life study highlights importance of biodiversity in the face of climate change, National Science Foundation)

The mother, out of pure indulgence, took me up, and put me towards the child, who presently seized me by the middle, and got my head into his mouth, where I roared so loud that the urchin was frighted, and let me drop, and I should infallibly have broke my neck, if the mother had not held her apron under me.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

From behind him came the ripple of a happy woman's laughter, and two young urchins darted forth from the hut, bare-legged and towsy, while the mother, stepping out, laid her hand upon her husband's arm and watched the gambols of the children.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The researchers noted the sevengill sharks might not have the same effect on the ecosystems involved as the great whites have had, citing the ecological disruption apparently caused off Alaska when a change in orca behavior had a knock-on effect, disrupting sea otters' predation of sea urchins, whose population then exploded, plowing through the area's kelp forests.

(Study indicates as great white shark disappears, living fossil moves in, Wikinews)