bavin

Etymology

Perhaps Old French baffe (“a faggot”).

noun

1. (Southern England, archaic, countable) A bundle of wood or twigs, which may be used in broom-making.
   […]that hot love is soon cold: that the bavin, though it burn bright, is but a blaze: that scalding water, it if stand awhile, turneth almost to ice[…] 1578, John Lyly, Euphues
   1. (Southern England, archaic, countable) A faggot bound with only one band.
2. (UK, dialect, uncountable) Impure limestone.
   The concretions […] are called 'bavin,' the shale associated with them being termed 'rotch.' 1839, Roderick Murchison, The Silurian System, i. xxxvi. 484

verb

1. (Southern England, archaic) To bundle and bind wood into bavins.

adj

1. Made of firewood or kindling.
   The skipping King, he ambled up and down, / With shallow jesters, and rash bavin wits, / Soon kindled and soon burnt, carded his state, / Mingled his royalty with capering fools, a. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, act 3, scene 2, lines 60–63