noggin

Etymology

Uncertain; attested since the 1600s (e.g. in The Tincker of Turvey) in several forms including the still-current Irish English form naggin, the rare older Irish, Scottish and Northern English form noggan, used by Jonathan Swift, and the Wexford form nuggeen. Tomás S. Ó Máille and some older dictionaries like Skeat's derive it from Irish naigín, cnaigín, from cnagaire, cnag, but the Oxford English Dictionary argues that Irish naigín and Scottish Gaelic noigean instead derive from English. Compare nog.

noun

1. A small mug, cup or ladle; the contents of such a container.
   Here Nat Adams, the burly bar-keeper, dispensed bad whisky at the rate of two shillings a noggin, or a guinea a bottle… 1889, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Parson of Jackman's Gulch
   I needed some nails for to rivet them down...When you go to town you can buy the full noggin but beware you bring none of your fancibles home. 1999, “Bold Doherty”, in Midsummer's Night, performed by Dervish
2. (dated outside dialects) A small measure of spirits equivalent to a gill.
3. (slang) The head.
   Or maybe he bumped his noggin when he fell down—after he got clipped on the legs. 2003, James D. Doss, Dead Soul
   She bumped her noggin on the bulkhead above the doorway, smiled in apology for her presumed clumsiness. 2003, John Farris, The Fury and the Power
4. (biochemistry) A signalling molecule involved in embryo development, producing large heads at high concentrations.
5. Alternative form of nogging (“horizontal beam”)