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. Bulleyn, 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. Shaks., 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.
1838. 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.
