echinus

See also: Echinus

English

A sketch from 1922 of the echinus as part of the capital of the Parthenon

Etymology

From Latin echīnus (“hedgehog; sea urchin”), from Ancient Greek ἐχῖνος (ekhînos).

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -aɪnəs

Noun

echinus (plural echinuses or echini)

1. A sea urchin.
   • 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎^[1]:

     'It is a sea-urchin - a common echinus. Nature repeats itself in many forms regardless of the size. This echinus is a model, a prototype, of the world.'

2. (architecture) The rounded moulding forming the bell of the capital of the Grecian Doric style, which is of a peculiar elastic curve.
3. (architecture) The quarter-round moulding (ovolo) of the Roman Doric style.
4. (architecture) The egg-and-anchor or egg-and-dart moulding, because often identified with the Roman Doric capital.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “echinus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Su-ch'ien

Latin

echīnus (1, sea urchin)

echīnus (2, hedgehog)

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐχῖνος (ekhînos).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ɛˈkʰiː.nʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [eˈkiː.nus]

Noun

echīnus m (genitive echīnī); second declension

1. a sea urchin, especially the edible kind
2. a hedgehog
3. the prickly husk of a chestnut
4. a rinsing bowl, especially of copper
5. (architecture) an ornament under the chapiter of an Ionic or Doric column

Declension

Second-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	echīnus	echīnī
genitive	echīnī	echīnōrum
dative	echīnō	echīnīs
accusative	echīnum	echīnōs
ablative	echīnō	echīnīs
vocative	echīne	echīnī

Synonyms

• (hedgehog): ērināceus

Derived terms

• echīnātus
• echīnomētrae

Descendants

• Translingual: Echinus
• → English: echinus
• Spanish: equino

References

• “echinus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “echinus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “echinus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “echinus”, in The Perseus Project (1999), Perseus Encyclopedia‎^[2]
• “echinus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “echinus”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly
• “echinus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin