ECH'INUS, n. [L. from Gr.] A hedgehog. 1. A shell-fish set with prickles or spines. The Echinus, in natural history, forms a genus of Mollusca. The body is roundish, covered with a bony crust, and often beset with movable prickles. There are several species and some of them eatable.2. With botanists, a prickly head or top of a plant; an echinated pericarp.3. In architecture, a member or ornament near the bottom of Ionic, Corinthian or Composite capitals, so named from its roughness, resembling, in some measure, the spiny coat of a hedgehog.
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