sea urchin

noun

any echinoderm of the class Echinoidea, having a somewhat globular or discoid form, and a shell composed of many calcareous plates covered with projecting spines.

a tall evergreen shrub or small tree, Hakea laurina, of Australia, having narrow leaves and dense, globe-shaped clusters of crimson flowers with long yellow stamens.

Origin of sea urchin

First recorded in 1585–95

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for sea urchin

Driesch has found that a tropism underlies the arrangement of the skeleton in the pluteus larvae of the sea-urchin.
Darwin and Modern Science|A.C. Seward and Others
On my way to the front of the peninsula, I looked for “sea-urchin,” but none fell in my way.
The Boy Tar|Mayne Reid
From the egg there hatches a tiny larva which does not at all resemble the parent starfish or sea-urchin.
Elementary Zoology, Second Edition|Vernon L. Kellogg
The sea-urchin can thus advance with ease, and even rapidity.
The Ocean World:|Louis Figuier

In the starfish we noted five ambulacral areas, one on the under side of each arm; similarly we find five in the sea-urchin.
Elementary Zoology, Second Edition|Vernon L. Kellogg

British Dictionary definitions for sea urchin

sea urchin

noun

any echinoderm of the class Echinoidea, such as Echinus esculentus (edible sea urchin), typically having a globular body enclosed in a rigid spiny test and occurring in shallow marine waters

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

sea urchin

noun

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Origin of sea urchin

Examples from the Web for sea urchin

sea urchin

noun