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

His lordship yawned, stretched himself, and then poured some pale brandy into a coffee-cup, before filling it with the rich fluid in the biggin.

From The Sapphire Cross by Fenn, George Manville

A favorite device is the earthenware jug with or without the cotton sack that makes it a coffee biggin.

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

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 Williamson, A. M. (Alice Muriel)

I harkit till ye, Robert Brand, when yer curse went blawin' through the biggin like an east win', and I ken'd ye was sawin a fuff to reap a swirl!

From The Coward A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863 by Morford, Henry

Any coffee pot with such a bag fitted into its mouth came to be spoken of as a coffee biggin.

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