Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Echinus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

ECHI'NUS (ἐχῖνος). A hedge-hog; and a sea-urchin, the shell of which was made use of by the ancients as a receptable for medicine and other things; hence the name is given by Horace (Sat. i. 6. 117.) to a table utensil, formed of the same material, or modelled to imitate it; but the particular use for which he intended it to be applied is not clearly apparent. Heindorf (ad l.) says, a bowl for washing the goblets in.

2. In architecture. A large elliptico-circular member in a Doric capital, placed immediately under the abacus. (Vitruv. iv. 3. 4.) In the finest specimens of the order it is either elliptical or hyperbolical in its outline, but never circular; and, with the annulets under it is of the same height as the abacus. (Elmes, Lectures on Architecture, p. 205.) The example (Echinus/2.1) represents a capital from the Parthenon.

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  Echinus/2.1