Noggins

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small cup or mug, often used for drinking beverages like ale or spirits
2. a playful term for a person's head or skull, suggesting a somewhat humorous or informal connotation
3. a measure of alcohol typically equal to a small quantity, highlighting its usage in social contexts

Etymology: The word "noggin" was first recorded around 1588, and the plural "noggins" is simply its plural form, used for more than one small drinking cup. The shape of the word itself is the puzzle, because its origin remains genuinely uncertain. Older dictionaries, including Walter Skeat's 1882 etymological dictionary, traced it to Irish "naigín" or "cnaigín", words linked to "cnag", meaning a knob or peg. The Oxford English Dictionary, however, argues that the Irish and Scottish Gaelic forms ("naigín" and "noigean") actually came from English, reversing the direction of borrowing. Those Irish and Scottish forms show how widely the word spread in the 1600s. Writers recorded it as "naggin" in Irish English, "noggan" in Scottish and Northern English, and "nuggeen" in Wexford. Jonathan Swift used the "noggan" spelling, which shows the word was familiar well beyond a single region.

Synonyms: head, skull, brain, crown, cranium