hedgehog

Etymology

It is formed from Middle English hegge (“hedge”) + hogge (“hog”),^[2][3][4] that is hedge and hog,^[5][6][7][8] named for its haunting of hedgerows and for its piglike snout.^[5][6][8] Late Middle English also has the spelling heyghoge.^[9] The first part is from Old English hecg.^[4] The compound replaced Old English igil, also īl,^[6][10] which is cognate with Old High German igil and German Igel.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The small spiny mammal: before 1450, in the treatise on fishing with an angle,^[5] in the mid-15th century according to Etymonline,^[6] and as hegge hogge in the MED.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old English used igil for both the hedgehog and the porcupine;^[10] an Old English text says that Saint Sebastian was as full of arrows as a hedgehog is of bristles.^[10] In 1597 Shakespeare used it in Richard III as a term of abuse for a person heedless of others' feelings, a sense that died out by 1660.^[5][7] From 1598, in Florio, it named other spiny animals, such as the tenrec and the porcupine fish, called the sea-hedgehog.^[5] From 1712 it named the prickly burs or seed vessels of certain plants and the plants that bear them.^[5][2] Later extensions include a disease of sheep (1607), a kind of military firework (1672), a dish in cookery (1723) and a dredging machine (1838).^[5] In 1942 it was used of a fortified position bristling with guns that point in all directions,^[5] and in 1980 geneticists named a gene of the fruit fly hedgehog after the bristly shape of its mutants.^[5] In English dialects hedgehog was also the prickly seed vessel of the corn crowfoot in the southern counties, and the holly in a Scottish text of 1715; in Northamptonshire to hedgehog was to open up and tell everything.^[11] In British slang it has meant veal (1858) and, as rhyming slang, a foreigner (1992).^[12][13]

Timeline

• before 1450 – the spiny insectivorous mammal.^[5][4]
• 1597 – a person who disregards others' feelings, as a term of abuse (obsolete by 1660).^[5][7]
• 1598 – other spiny animals, such as the tenrec and the porcupine fish.^[5]
• 1605 – in America, the porcupine.^[14]
• 1712 – prickly burs or seed vessels, and the plants that bear them.^[5]
• 1723 – a dish in cookery.^[5]
• 1942 – a fortified military position defended on every side.^[5]
• 1980 – in genetics, a gene first found in the fruit fly.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small nocturnal insectivorous mammal of Europe, Asia and Africa, with a back covered in spines, that rolls itself into a ball for protection: A hedgehog was snuffling under the garden shed.^[2][15][16]
2. Any of several other spiny animals, such as the porcupine or the tenrec.^[2][15][5]
3. A prickly fruit, seed pod or bur, or a plant that bears one.^[2][5]
4. A fortified military position defended in all directions.^[5]
5. (genetics) A gene first identified in the fruit fly, named for the bristly look of its mutants.^[5]
6. (obsolete, 1597–1660) A person who disregards the feelings of others, used as a term of abuse.^[5][7]

Word family

• hedgehoggy
• hedgehog cactus

Related words

• hedge
• hog
• hedgerow

Usage notes

In the United States, chiefly in New York State and New England, hedgehog has been a name for the porcupine since 1605; a writer of 1928 called it a misnomer, since the true hedgehog is an insectivore.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
4. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
14. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
15. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
16. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins