- this is a Scots word for a building, derived from Scots bigg, meaning 'to build', from the Old Norse verb byggja, 'inhabit, dwell in, build'.
Places called Newbiggin or Newbigging can be found in many counties including Angus, Lanarkshire and Orkney. The word bigg is also used in a useful proverb, recorded in Andrew Cheviot's Proverbs of Scotland (1896):
If he's biggit in the moss, he maun gang into the mire the Scots equivalent of the man who built his house on sand.