Zool. Also 4 echynnys, 6 echynus. [a. L. echīnus, Gr. ἐχῖνος hedgehog, sea-urchin.] The Sea-urchin; a genus of animals (Order Echinoidea, Class Echinodermata), inhabiting a spheroidal shell built up from polygonal plates, and covered with rows of sharp spines. (The sense ‘hedgehog’ given in Bailey and some mod. Dicts. seems to be merely Gr. and Lat.)
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., II. ix. (1868), 82. Sharpe fisshes þat hyȝten echynnys.
c. 1520. Andrewe, Noble Lyfe, in Babees Bk. (1868), 234. Echynus is a lytell fysshe of half a fote longe, & hath sharpe prykeles vnder his bely in stede of fete.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth (1723), 33. In Chalk … there are only found Echini, and the other lighter Sorts of Shells.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. 120. Yon round Echinus ray his arrowy mail.
1877. W. Dall, Tribes N. W., 51. The echinus … is furnished with ovaries on the inner side of the dome of the test.
† 2. See quot. Obs. or doubtful; cf. ECHINATE.
1721–1800. Bailey, Echinus, [among Botanists] is the prickly Head, Cover of the Seed or Top of any Plant, so called from its likeness to a Hedg-hog.
3. Anat. ‘The rough stomach of a ruminant; also, the rough and muscular gizzard of graminivorous and gallinaceous birds’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1716. G. Cheyne, Philos. Princ. Relig., II. 360. In all granivorous birds, the Crop, the Echinus, and the Gizzard.
4. Archit. The ovolo molding next below the abacus of the capital of a column. [So in Gr. and L.; the reason for this use of the word has been variously conjectured.]
1563. Shute, Archit., D ij a. The Antiques in diuers of their edifices, hath made Echinus, to be in Proiecture like vnto Abacus.
1664. Evelyn, trans. Freart’s Archit., 127. Echinus, a Bottle cut with an edg.
1789. P. Smyth, trans. Aldrich’s Archit. (1818), 90. This part is called an echinus, because of its resemblance to the prickly coat of chestnut.
1876. Gwilt, Archit., Gloss., Echinus.… The same as the ovolo or quarter round, though … only properly so called when carved with eggs and anchors.
