biggin

¹ American  

[big-in] / ˈbɪg ɪn /

noun

Archaic.

1. a close-fitting cap worn especially by children in the 16th and 17th centuries.

2. a soft cap worn while sleeping; nightcap.

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biggin ² American  

[big-in] / ˈbɪg ɪn /

noun

1. a coffeepot, usually silver, having a separate container in which the coffee is immersed while being boiled.

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biggin ¹ British  

/ ˈbɪɡɪn /

noun

1. a plain close-fitting cap, often tying under the chin, worn in the Middle Ages and by children in the 17th century

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biggin ² British  

/ ˈbɪɡən /

noun

1. a construction, esp a house or cottage

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Etymology

Origin of biggin¹

1520–30; < Middle French beguin kind of hood or cap, originally one worn by a Beguine

Origin of biggin²

After Biggin, the name of its early 19th-century inventor

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

biggin

By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin, Or kirk deserted by its riggin, It’s ten to one ye’ll find him snug in Some eldritch part, Wi’ deils, they say, L—d save’s! colleaguin’ At some black art.

From The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham by Robert Burns

How little the poor couple guessed that the baby born "in thunder, lightning and in rain" would make of the clay biggin a world's shrine, to be bought by the nation for four thousand pounds.

From The Heather-Moon by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

The Triumph coffee filter was a cloth-bag device which made any coffee pot a biggin.

From All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

About the year 1817, the coffee biggin appeared in England.

From All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

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

From The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat