URCHINとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From 中期英語 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.

発音

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈɜːtʃɪn/, /ˈɜːtʃən/
• (General American) enPR: ûrʹchĭn, IPA: /ˈɝt͡ʃɪn/, /ˈɝt͡ʃən/
• 韻: -ɜː(ɹ)tʃɪn
• ハイフネーション: ur‧chin, urchin

名詞

urchin (plural urchins)

1. A mischievous child.
   • 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 7, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:

     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.

2. A street urchin, a child who lives, or spends most of their time, in the streets.
   • a. 1879, William Howitt, The Wind in a Frolic:

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

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.
   • 1836, Andrew Ure, The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain […] :

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

5. (historical) 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.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]:

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

派生語

Further reading

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Urchin”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume X, Part 1 (Ti–U), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, pages 454–455.

アナグラム

• chunri, unrich