• (RP) IPA: /ˈɜːtʃɪ̈n/
• (GA) enPR: ûrʹchĭn, IPA: /ˈɝtʃɪ̈n/

urchin (plural urchins)

1. A mischievous child.
   • 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 7, in Riders of the Purple Sage: A Novel, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, OCLC 6868219 ↗:

     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.

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

3. (archaic) A hedgehog.
   • before 1400, The Romaunt of the Rose, translated from French, partially by Geoffrey Chaucer

     […] Like sharp urchouns his here was growe, / His eyes rede as the fire-glow; […]

4. A sea urchin.
5. A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.
   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The Merry VViues of VVindsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene iv]:

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

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

• sea urchin
• street urchin

• French: garnement
• German: Bengel, Lümmel, Lausbube, Racker, Schlingel, Göre
• Italian: monello, birichino, peste, discolo, lazzarone
• Portuguese: moleque
• Russian: прока́зник
• Spanish: gamín, gamina, golfillo