top

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The highest part or surface of something.

   Put your books on top of the desk.

2. 2
   noun

   The highest point of a hill or mountain.

   After hiking all day, we reached the top.

3. 3
   noun

   A piece of clothing worn on the upper body.

   She wore a blue top with white jeans.

4. 4
   noun

   A cover or lid for a container or hole.

   He couldn't get the top off the jar.

5. 5
   verb

   To add a finishing touch or be more than something else.

   They topped off their dinner with coffee and cake.

Multiword verbs with top

• top off Phrasal verb A2

  to complete or conclude something with a final addition or action

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Top has two distinct Old English histories. The word for a summit comes from a widespread Germanic root, while the word for the spinning child's toy is also recorded once in Old English but has an unknown origin. The figurative phrase over the top arose in the First World War from soldiers going over a trench parapet to attack and later came to mean excessively or exaggeratedly.

From Middle English top, toppe, from Old English topp (“top, highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything”), from Proto-West Germanic *topp, from Proto-Germanic *tuppaz (“braid, pigtail, end”), of unknown ultimate origin. Compare typologically Latin apex (<< Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“to join, attach, fasten, fit”)). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Top (“top”), Cimbrian sòpf (“braid”), Dutch top (“top, summit, peak”), German Topp (“top of a mast”), Zopf (“braid, pigtail, plait, top”), Luxembourgish Zapp (“plait, tress”), Vila…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary