ONlwSG

biceir m. [ˈb̥iʰkʲəɾʲ], gen. idem, ‘wooden dish (with handles); beaker’ etc. Forms of this word differ in terms of (1) the length of the stressed vowel: (long [iː]) bíceir, bìocair, (short [i]) biceir, bicear, bigeir, bicein, bigein, bigirein, biogaran; (2) the quality of the post-stress velar plosive: (preaspirated, non-palatal [ʰk]) bìocar, (preaspirated, palatal [ʰkʲ]) bíceir, biceir, bicear, bicein, (voiceless, non-palatal [ɡ̊]) biogaran, (voiceless, palatal [ɡ̊ʲ]) bigeir, bigein, bigirein; and (3) the form of ending: (-Vr) bíceir, bìocair, biceir, bicear, bigeir, (-Vn) bicein, bigein, (-VrVn) bigirein, biogaran.

Senses include ‘beaker or bowl’ (MacDomhnuill 1741: bíceir), ‘cup’ (Shaw 1780: biceir), ‘cup; bottle; small (round) wooden dish with handles’ (Armstrong 1825: bicear; HSS 1828: biceir), ‘wooden cylindrical dish with hoops, often with handles’ (HSS 1828: bigein), ‘small wooden dish’ (Mackay 1829, 116, 352: biogaran), ‘wooden dish’ (MacBain 1911: biceir), ‘small wooden dish; drinking cup; bottle; beaker; luggie’ 

‘Small wooden dish or vessel with one or two handles formed from the projection upwards of one or two of the staves’ (SND^˄).

(Dwelly 1911: biceir), ‘small wooden vessel’ (MacLennan 1925: biogaran), ‘small wooden dish’ (ibid.: biceir), ‘beaker’ (MacLeod 1999, 12; MacLeòid 1976, 142; AFB^˄: bìocar).

Henderson (1910, 205) derives Rob Donn’s form biogaran (Mackay 1829, 116, 352) from ON bikarr m. ‘cup, beaker, goblet’ (NO), cf. Ice. bikarr ‘beaker, large drinking cup’ (Cleasby 1874); McDonald (2009, 342) considers the derivation uncertain. HSS (1828) and MacBain (1911), on the other hand, derive biceir from Scots bicker ‘beaker’.

ON bikar acc. would formally yield SG *biogar [ˈb̥iɡ̊əɾ], possibly *bigear [ˈb̥iɡ̊ʲəɾ]. The word does not appear in Early Gaelic and the variation in form in Scottish Gaelic may be due to a number of factors: (a) a loan from Eng. beaker /biːkə(ɹ)/, 

Eng. beaker < MEng. biker (< ON bikarr), with modern Eng. beaker apparently assimilated to Eng. beak, while the original English form is retained in Scots bicker (OED^˄).

> SG bíceir (which would nowadays be written bìceir); (b) a loan from Scots bicker /bɪkər/, > SG bicear, biceir; 

While for Scots biker [bɪkər] ‘wooden cup, drinking vessel, round wooden vessel with an upright handle on one side’, Jakobsen (≈1928) notes ON bikarr, he adds that ‘the preservation of the word in Shetland is certainly due to the influence of Lowland Scots’.

(c) confusion with SG pigean m. ‘little earthenware jar, pitcher or pot’ (Dwelly 1911), which is either a diminutive form of SG pige m. ‘earthenware jar, pitcher or pot’ (a loan from Scots pig ‘a (usually earthernware) vessel’) or a loan from Scots piggin ‘a vessel, usually of wood, tub-shaped and with one stave extended to form a handle, also earthenware jar (through confusion with Scots pig)’ (SND^˄): bigein, bicein, bigeir; (d) use of the Gaelic diminutive suffix -an: bigirein, biogaran; (e) a more recent loan from Eng. beaker: bìocar, cf. Ir. bíocar m. ‘beaker’; and (f) dialectal variation between final non-palatal -r and -n on the one hand and palatal -r and -n on the other.