Description:

The term 'rycin' is used almost exclusively as a noun and is a very negative and derogatory way to refer to a child or teenager, although it might also be used jokingly.

Rycin was borrowed from the English word 'urchin' during the middle period, at first it seems fondly or ironically, but then increasingly disparagingly and negatively, and spread through the language. It obatined its present form by metathesis, with the 'yrcin' form maintaining currency into the early modern period alongside 'rycin'. It existed in the early modern period but was not accepted as an official word until the middle of the modern period.