Bawcock, a semi-mocking term of endearment, a foolish person; biggin, a nightcap without a border:
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night.
2 Hen. IV, IV. v. 26-8.
Biggin, Bolter, Blouze
The word also denoted a child’s cap, hence: From the biggin to the nightcap, signifies from childhood to old age. It is worth noting that this is the meaning which Dr. Johnson assigns to the word—cp. ‘Biggin ... A child’s cap’—and he gives as the sole illustration the above quotation from Shakespeare. Bolter, used of snow, dirt, &c., means to cohere, form into lumps: ‘blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me,’ Macb. IV. i. 123; blouze, a fat, red-faced wench, a coarse, untidy woman, also termed a blossom: ‘Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure,’ Tit. And. IV. ii. 72; codger, a shoemaker: ‘Ye squeak out your cozier’s catches,’ Twelfth N. II. iii. 97; day-woman, a dairymaid; dowl, down, soft feathers; drumble, to be sluggish and slow in movement; cowl, a large tub: ‘Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where’s the cowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet-mead; quickly, come,’ Merry Wives, III. iii. 156; fettle, to prepare, make ready; fill-horse, the shaft-horse; firk, to beat; flap-jack, a pancake; gaberdine, a loose garment or smock-frock: ‘Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows,’ Temp. II. ii. 40; flaw, a sudden gust or blast of wind:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!
Ham. V. i. 238, 239.