housetop

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the roof or uppermost part of a house

   Smoke drifted above the housetop after the chimney fire was put out.

2. 2
   noun

   a high, public vantage point, especially in the expression proclaim or shout something from the housetops

   After months of secrecy, she wanted to shout the news from the housetops.

A compound of house + top, recorded from the sixteenth century. Its literal sense is the roof of a house; biblical and later idiomatic uses of proclaiming something from the housetops made it an image of very public announcement.

Topics

External links

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