Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use hedgehog in a sentence

29 example sentences · noun, verb

Hedgehog means a small mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, characterized by their spiny back and often by the habit of rolling up into a ball when attacked, native to Afro-Eurasia. Example: “Hedgehogs and bears are two of the many mammals that hibernate in winter.”

Examples of hedgehog by meaning

nounA small mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, characterized by their spiny back and often by the habit of rolling up...

  • Among the Romans the genital organ of the hedgehog and the wolf were among the ingredients used in aphrodisiac concoctions.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 152

nounA type of chocolate cake (or slice), somewhat similar to an American brownie.

  • I am so flustered that I order a vanilla slice instead of hedgehog.2008, Lili Wilkinson, The Not Quite Perfect Boyfriend, unnumbered page
  • His wife had made a hedgehog cake and he offered some but Murphy refused – his mouth was so dry with terror he couldn′t swallow.2009, Adam Shand, The Skull: Informers, Hit Men and Australia's Toughest Cop, page 199

nounThe edible fungus Hydnum repandum.

  • Hedgehogs fruit from autumn until late spring.1998, Randy Molina, David Pilz, Managing Forest Ecosystems to Conserve Fungus Diversity and Sustain Wild Mushroom Harvests

nounSomeone who has one big overarching personal philosophy or worldview.

  • He was a hedgehog, not a fox.1970, The Month

verbTo make use of a hedgehog barricade as a defensive maneuver.

  • Hedgehogging means — let us call a spade a spade — that we're were encircled: It's something that has been forced upon us, a predicament from which we ought to try to escape as fast as possible.1966, Theodor Plievier, Stalingrad, page 43
  • Luettwitz hedgehogged his regiment and held his positions until the rest of the division arrived two days later.2012, Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller, Hitler's Commanders, →ISBN
  • During the night of May 27 the 90th Light Division hedgehogged south of El Adem.2007, Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Rommel's Desert War: The Life and Death of the Afrika Korps, →ISBN

verbTo array with spiky projections like the quills of a hedgehog.

  • All around were styrofoam cups hedgehogged with butts, and the threebar electric heater was encrusted with bits of charcoaled tobacco and frazzled stands of hair where people had stooped down to spark up.2008, Antonia Quirke, Choking on Marlon Brando, →ISBN
  • The walls were pockmarked with fragments of stone and hedgehogged with jagged daggers of glass, while in the street below there were sickening splodges on the pavement which a workman was covering with sawdust.2008, Max Hennessy, Back to Battle, →ISBN, page 300
  • I think they're from different faculties,” I reply, taking a step back to peruse the table filled with assorted snacks, my hand hovering over the hedgehogged tray of cheese and pineapple cocktail sticks.2014, George Ryder, Last Action Zero, →ISBN, page 39

verbTo curl up into a defensive ball.

  • You try for his head, but he's hedgehogged round now, elbows beside his ears and you can't get him.2008, A.L. Kennedy, Day, →ISBN, page 229
  • I stayed hedgehogged in my ball, listening for movement and trying to ignore the cramp in my legs, the ache in my gut and — encore — the throbbing in my temples.2011, Edwin Thomas, The Blighted Cliffs, →ISBN, page 13
  • Hedgehogged, just like the others.2014, Robert Ryan, The Dead Can Wait, →ISBN, page 287

More sentences with hedgehog

  • Hedgehogs and bears are two of the many mammals that hibernate in winter.From the entry hibernate
  • Hedgehogs are needled creatures, just like porcupines.From the entry needled
  • The hedgehog uncurled when its predators had left.From the entry uncurl
  • And marijuana is not a Schedule I any more than a hedgehog is an apex predator.2017 April 2, Tim Carvell, Josh Gondelman, Dan Gurewitch, Jeff Maurer, Ben Silva, Will Tracy, Jill Twiss, Seena Vali, Julie Weiner…. From the entry apex predator
  • If you get your hands on several of these cuties, you've got yourself an "array of hedgehogs."2015 December 9, “Cute alert: Arizona officials make pet hedgehogs legal”, in Arizona Republic, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2026. From the entry array
  • “Why, hello, my little fairylets!” said the hedgehog.2025, Kate Korsh, chapter 8, in When Fairies Go Too Far (Oona Bramblegoop’s Sideways Magic; 4), New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons…. From the entry oopsies
  • Thus the swamp antechinus (Antchinus minimus, ‘smallest hedgehog equivalent’) distributed across Tasmania and coastal Victoria, weighs about 65 grams.2024, David Owen, David Pemberton, Tasmanian Devil, Allen & Unwin, page 56. From the entry swamp antechinus
  • The several species of small mammals found at Tagay, such as dormice, talpids and hedgehogs, show close affinities to European taxa.2016 November 16, Hanneke Meijer, “Sunny steppes? A tiny parrot fossil suggests Siberia was once subtropical”, in The Guardian. From the entry talpid
  • However, recent work points to restricted intraciliary rather than cytoplasmic calcium effects subsequently regulating cellular sonic hedgehog signaling.2015 May 19, Sandra Habbig, Max Christoph Liebau, “Ciliopathies - from rare inherited cystic kidney diseases to basic cellular function”…. From the entry intraciliary
  • And just like he unballed, my multilingual hedgehog pal balls right back up into the safety of his disguise.2014, Chris Lynch, Cyberia. From the entry unball
  • Whatever Aristotle may have thought, hedgehogs are not vegetarianly inclined.2008, Hugh Warwick, “How We Can Look After Hedgehogs”, in A Prickly Affair: My Life with Hedgehogs, London: Allen Lane, →ISBN, part 3…. From the entry vegetarianly
  • Got to pick some milk up, you see.” “I've just been too.” Sure enough he showed the hedgehog a four-pinter.2006, Martyn J. Pass, Dani Pass, Waiting for Red, page 262. From the entry pinter
  • Next time at Kew, look in the rock garden at the hedgehog plant, Erinacea anthyllis, with its mauve flowers.1993, The Horticulturist, volume 2, page 138. From the entry hedgehog plant
  • Unlike hedgehogs, all gymnures produce a strong ammoniac smell reminiscent of rotten garlic, the better to establish territories and to deter enemies when frightened.2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherworlds, Penguin, published 2023, page 50. From the entry gymnure
  • The order formerly known as Insectivora included solenodons; shrews; moles and desmans; hedgehogs and moonrats or gymnures; golden moles, tenrecs, and otter shrews; and sengis or elephant shrews.2007, Marian Armstrong, Wildlife and Plants, volume 9 (Horseshoe Crab – Ladybug), New York, N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish, →ISBN, page 540. From the entry sengi

Meaning of hedgehog

  1. noun A small mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, characterized by their spiny back and often by the habit of rolling up into a ball when attacked, native to Afro-Eurasia.
  2. noun Any of several spiny mammals, such as the porcupine, that are similar to the hedgehog.
  3. noun A spigot mortar-type of depth charge weapon from World War II that simultaneously fires a number of explosives into the water to create a pattern of underwater explosions intended to attack submerged submarines.

Full definition of hedgehog

Questions about hedgehog in a sentence

How do you use hedgehog in a sentence?
Hedgehog is used as a noun and verb. For example: “Hedgehogs and bears are two of the many mammals that hibernate in winter.”
What is a short sentence with hedgehog?
“Hedgehogged, just like the others.”
What does hedgehog mean?
Hedgehog means a small mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, characterized by their spiny back and often by the habit of rolling up into a ball when attacked, native to Afro-Eurasia.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hedgehog (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use hedgehog in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/hedgehog. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.