noggin
nounUS /ˈnɑɡɪn/ · UK /ˈnɒɡɪn/
Etymology Uncertain. First use appears c. 1588. Appears in publications in the 1600s (e.g. in The Tincker of Turvey) in several forms including the still-current Irish English form naggin, the rare older Irish, Scottish and Northern English form noggan, used by Jonathan Swift, and the Wexford form nuggeen. Tomás S. Ó Máille and some older dictionaries like Skeat's derive it from Irish naigín, cnaigín, from cnagaire, cnag, but the Oxford English Dictionary argues that Irish naigín and Scottish Gaelic noigean instead derive from English. Compare nog.
A small mug, cup or ladle; the contents of such a container.
- Here Nat Adams, the burly bar-keeper, dispensed bad whisky at the rate of two shillings a noggin, or a guinea a bottle…1889, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Parson of Jackman's Gulch:
- I needed some nails for to rivet them down...When you go to town you can buy the full noggin but beware you bring none of your fancibles home.1999, “Bold Doherty”, in Midsummer's Night, performed by Dervish:
A small measure of spirits equivalent to a gill.
Dated outside dialects
- I don’t know whether any of you, gentlemen, ever partook of a real, substantial, hospitable Scotch breakfast, and then went to a slight lunch of a bushel of oysters, a dozen or so of bottled ale, and a noggin or two of whisky to close up with.1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 49, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:
Slang The head.
- Or maybe he bumped his noggin when he fell down—after he got clipped on the legs.2003, James D. Doss, Dead Soul:
- She bumped her noggin on the bulkhead above the doorway, smiled in apology for her presumed clumsiness.2003, John Farris, The Fury and the Power:
Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Microbiology, Natural sciences, Physical sciences A signalling molecule involved in embryo development, producing large heads at high concentrations.
Alternative Alternative form of nogging (“horizontal beam; rough brick masonry”).
- Derived terms
- get the noggin joggin', use one's noggin