ECH'INUS, noun [Latin 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.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI