biggin

plural biggins

1. archaicA child's cap; (figuratively) childhood.

   An old woman's biggin for a nightcap.

   1629, Philip Massinger, Nathan Field, The Picture

   1 more example

   […] my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the biggin was bound first round my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore it again.

   1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

2. historicalAn official's hood or coif.

plural biggins · alternative bigging

1. A coffee pot with a strainer or perforated metallic vessel for holding the ground coffee, through which boiling water is poured.First known use 18th c.

   ‘That silver biggin holds coffee, and there are cups on the lower tier of the cart.’

   1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter XVI, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 138

   1 more example

   As he became more popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the Yard ladies would fly out at their doors crying ‘Mr Baptist—tea-pot!’ ‘Mr Baptist—dust-pan!’ ‘Mr Baptist—flour-dredger!’ ‘Mr Baptist—coffee-biggin!’ At the same time exhibiting those articles, and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

   1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC

plural biggins

1. A drinking vessel for ale or beer; possibly a tankard.

   Oswald's wife then put before him a large pie, and some wheaten bread, with a biggin of good beer.

   1847, Frederick Marryat, chapter 14, in The Children of the New Forest, England: H. Hurst

1. A place in England:
   1. A small village and civil parish by Hulland, Derbyshire Dales district, Derbyshire (OS grid ref SK2648).
   2. A village in Hartington Nether Quarter parish, Derbyshire Dales district, Derbyshire (OS grid ref SK1559).
   3. A hamlet north of Tilbury, Thurrock borough, Essex (OS grid ref TQ6577).
   4. A village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, previously in Selby district (OS grid ref SE5434).