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Urchin vs Foundling - What's the difference?

urchin | foundling |

As nouns the difference between urchin and foundling

is that urchin is a mischievous child while foundling is an abandoned child, left by its parent(s), often a baby left at a convent or similar safe place.

urchin

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A mischievous child.
  • *
  • And like these fresh green things were the dozens of babies, tots, toddlers, noisy urchins , laughing girls, a whole multitude of children of one family. For Collier Brandt, the father of all this numerous progeny, was a Mormon with four wives.
  • A street kid, a child from a poor neighborhood.
  • * W. Howitt
  • And the urchins that stand with their thievish eyes / Forever on watch ran off each with a prize.
  • (archaic) A hedgehog.
  • * before 1400 ,
  • A sea urchin.
  • A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form a hedgehog.
  • * Shakespeare
  • We'll dress [them] like urchins , ouphes, and fairies.
  • One of a pair in a series of small card cylinders arranged around a carding drum; so called from its fancied resemblance to the hedgehog.
  • (Knight)

    foundling

    English

    Noun

  • An abandoned child, left by its parent(s), often a baby left at a convent or similar safe place.
  • * 1749', (Henry Fielding), '' .
  • * 1776 , (Adam Smith), ,
  • In foundling hospitals, and among the children brought up by parish charities, the mortality is still greater than among those of the common people.
  • * 1794 , (Thomas Paine), (Part I) ,
  • Moses was a foundling ; Jesus Christ was born in a stable; and Mahomet was a mule driver.

    Derived terms

    * foundling wheel

    See also

    * oblate

    Anagrams

    *