overwordExplorer
FRENCH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

oursin.

sea urchin

6 characters2 syllables approx.Français language

Meaning & usage

noun/uʁ.sɛ̃/
  1. sea urchin

    masculine
Where this word comes from

The first attestation of the word (1549) is Provençal orsin de mar, compare with its French synonym hérisson de mer. The Provençal orsin may actually originally derive from ors (“bear”) or Latin ursīnus, with French oursin likewise from ours (“bear”), or an adaptation of the Provençal. It may have been contaminated with hérisson (cf. Provençal eriçon) and related terms, which are closer semantic fits. Compare also Portuguese ouriço-do-mar, Italian riccio di mare, Spanish erizo de mar, Catalan eriçó de mar (dialectal oriç), English urchin or hurcheon all deriving from Latin ericius which also gives French hérisson.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.