▪ I. biggin1
(ˈbɪgɪn)
Also 6 begin, byggen, 7 biggon, -ging, 6–9 biggen.
[a. F. béguin child's cap. See Beguine, note.]
1. A child's cap.
| 1530 Palsgr. 198/1 Byggen for a chyldes heed, beguyne. 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 577/2. 1639 Massinger Unnat. Combat iv. ii, Would you have me Transform my hat to double clouts and biggings? 1755 Connoisseur No. 80 (1774) III. 71 Such a store of clouts, caps..biggens..as would set up a Lying-in Hospital. 1819 Scott Ivanhoe xxviii, My brain has been topsy-turvy..ever since the biggin was bound first round my head. |
b. Taken as the sign of infancy.
| 1609 B. Jonson Sil. Wom. iii. vi, [You have] beene a courtier from the biggen, to the night-cap. 1638 Quarles Hieroglyph. iii. 215 How many dangers meet Poor man between the biggin and the winding sheet. |
2. A cap or hood for the head, a night-cap; also the coif of a Serjeant-at-law.
| 1562 W. Bullein Bk. Simples 10 a, Put into a Forhead clothe or Biggen. 1589 Pappe w. Hatchet B ij b, [His] head is swolne so big, that he had neede send to the cooper to make him a biggin. 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, iv. v. 27 Hee whose Brow (with homely Biggen bound) Snores out the Watch of Night. 1610 Markham Masterp. ii. xvii. 245 Make the horse a biggen of canuase to close in the soare. 1639 City-Match iv. vii. in Hazl. Dodsley XIII. 288 Ha' made him barrister, And rais'd him to his satin cap and biggon. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth xvii, Reduced..to biggen and gown, in a night brawl. |
† 3. The amnion enveloping the fœtus. Obs.
| 1611 Cotgr., Agneliere..called by some Midwiues, the Coyfe, or Biggin of the child; by others, the childs shirt. |
▪ II. biggin2
[See quot.]
A kind of coffee-pot containing a strainer for the infusion of the coffee, without allowing the grounds to mix with the infusion.
| 1803 Gents. Mag. LXXIII. 1094 Mr. Biggin some years ago invented a new sort of coffee pot which has been ever since extensively sold under the name of coffee biggins. 1817 Specif. of Ogle's Patent No. 4173, for Improvements in tea and coffee pots or biggins.—‘The tea or coffee being put into the canister, placed within the pot or biggin, the boiling water is then poured upon it, and the extract is filtered through the strainer into the exterior pot or biggin.’ a 1803 Moore in Mem. & Corr. (1853) I. 97, I had yesterday a long visit from Mr. Biggin..By the bye it is from him the coffee biggins take their name. |