释义 |
▪ I. bigg, big Sc. and dial.|bɪg| Also 5 byge, 6 bygg(e, 6–7 bigge. [a. ON. bygg barley (Da. byg, Sw. bjug), corresp. to OE. béow grain:—OTeut. *beuwo-m, f. Old Aryan root *bheu to grow, to be (whence be; cf. Gr. ϕύω, Skr. bhū).] 1. The four-rowed barley, an inferior but hardier variety of the six-rowed or winter barley (Hordeum hexastichon), of rapid growth, and suited to inferior soils and more northern latitudes. (Barley is generic; bear includes the six-rowed and four-rowed kinds; bigg the four-rowed only. But bear interchanges in local use, now with barley, now with bigg.)
c1450in Wr.-Wülcker Voc. 726 Hoc exaticum, hec mixtilio, byge. 1547Wills & Invent. N.C. (1835) 127 I gyue to George Bayts a chaldre of Bygg & a chalder of hauer. 1562Turner Herbal ii. (1568) 16 The seconde kinde is called in Latin Hordeum Tetrastichum, in Englishe, bigge barley or beare or bigge alone. This kind groweth muche in y⊇ North country. 1570Levins Manip. 118 Bigge, corne, hordeum quadratum. 1633Acts Durham High Commiss. Crt. 57 And did violently carrie awaie the tieth beare or bigge. 1845Statist. Acc. Scotl. XII. 453 Oats & bear or big with a little barley, are the kinds of grain. 1882Proc. Berw. Nat. Club IX. 444 Used for husking big, or four-rowed barley. 2. attrib., as in bigg-barley, bigg-market, bigg-riddle.
1597Gerard Herbal. i. xliv. §2. 64 Called..of our English northerne people..Big Barly. 1864Sat. Rev. 29 May, Most strangers would be inclined to think that the ‘Bigg Market’ meant the large one. 1446Wills & Inv. N.C. (1835) I. 95 Item j whetridell, j bigridell. ▪ II. bigg(e obs. form of big. |