# urchin

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈɜːtʃɪn/ · frequency rank #37,756

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

## 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.

## Common misspellings (9)
`ruchin`, `ucrhin`, `urcchin`, `urchhin`, `urchinn`, `urchni`, `urcihn`, `urhcin`, `urrchin`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/urchin