topless

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   having the chest or breasts uncovered

   Some visitors sunbathed topless on the beach.

2. 2
   adj

   lacking a roof, lid, or other upper covering

   They toured the city on a topless bus.

3. 3
   adj

   extremely high or seeming to have no summit; chiefly literary

   Topless cliffs rose above the narrow valley.

Formed from top and -less, literally ‘without a top.’ The word has long described things lacking an upper part; its sense ‘with the chest or breasts uncovered’ became common in the twentieth century. A literary older use means ‘immeasurably high.’

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