biggin
Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- noun A child's cap; a hood, or something worn on the head.
- noun A coffeepot with a strainer or perforated metallic vessel for holding the ground coffee, through which boiling water is poured; -- so called from Mr. Biggin, the inventor.
- noun A building.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun A head-dress worn in the later middle ages, and throughout the seventeenth century, by both men and women. That worn by women was broad at the top, with projecting corners, like ears.
- noun A small wooden vessel; a can.
Examples
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Mr. Carlyle said it was his habit to drink five cups of tea. He ran off into table-talk about tea and coffee, told us that he had found in Lord Russell's 'Memoirs of Moore,' which he called a rubbishy book, the origin of the word biggin; it comes from one Biggin, a tinner, who first made the vessel and was knighted afterwards.
Harrison, Mrs. Burton, 1843-1920. Recollections Grave and Gay
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In summer and winter the baby's head was always closely covered with a cap, or "biggin" often warmly wadded, which was more comforting in winter than comfortable in summer.
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“Not a doit I,” answered poor Wamba — “and for hanging up by the feet, 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.”
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Many a time I have put on my spectacles to look at the lassie in church, because she has gentle blue een, wi 'long lashes; and, when she sits in shadow, and is very still and very pale, and is, happen, about to fall asleep wi' the length of the sermon and the heat of the biggin '- she is as like one of Canova's marbles as aught else.'
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The Shepherd assented, for he had seen the head of Geordy alike in the hut and the hall; beaming the same by the mirrored fire-light of the manorial villa, and "by the peat-lowe frae the ingle o 'the auld clay biggin."
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847
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A coffee pot, a coffee percolator, and a drip pot, or coffee biggin, are the utensils most frequently used for the preparation of this beverage.
Note
The cap sense of 'biggin' probably comes from the French 'béguin,' the cap worn by the Béguines, 13th/14th century Roman Catholic lay religious communities.
