Sc. and dial. 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).]

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  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.)

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c. 1450.  in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 726. Hoc exaticum, hec mixtilio, byge.

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1547.  Wills & Invent. N. C. (1835), 127. I gyue to George Bayts a chaldre of Bygg & a chalder of hauer.

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1562.  Turner, 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 ye North country.

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1570.  Levins, Manip., 178. Bigge, corne. hordeum quadratum.

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1633.  Acts Durham High Commiss. Crt., 57. And did violently carrie awaie the tieth beare or bigge.

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1845.  Statist. Acc. Scotl., XII. 453. Oats & bear or big with a little barley, are the kinds of grain.

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1882.  Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, IX. 444. Used for husking big, or four-rowed barley.

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  2.  attrib., as in bigg-barley, -market, -riddle.

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1597.  Gerard, Herbal., I. xliv. § 2. 64. Called … of our English northerne people … Big Barly.

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1864.  Sat. Rev., 29 May, 637/2. Most strangers would be inclined to think that the ‘Bigg Market’ meant the large one.

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1446.  Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), I. 95. Item whetridell, bigridell.

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