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URCHIN
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Poor and often mischievous city child
Classified under:
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:
Meantime the thieves were frightened, and ran off a little way; but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, “The little urchin is only trying to make fools of us.”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
The next afternoon, accompanied by Arthur, she arrived in the Morse carriage, to the unqualified delight of the Silva tribe and of all the urchins on the street, and to the consternation of Maria.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
The dwarf was soundly whipt, and as a farther punishment, forced to drink up the bowl of cream into which he had thrown me: neither was he ever restored to favour; for soon after the queen bestowed him on a lady of high quality, so that I saw him no more, to my very great satisfaction; for I could not tell to what extremities such a malicious urchin might have carried his resentment.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
At last one took the other aside, and said, “That little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him about from town to town as a show; we must buy him.”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
