topper
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈtɒpə/
ipa: /ˈtɑpɚ/
ipa: /ˈtɔpə/
rhymes: -ɒpə(ɹ)
Forms: form: toppers
Etymology: From Middle English toppor, equivalent to top + -er.
Senses: examples: text: Deal for network star Henry Morgan to sign a Majestic contract for two albums has fallen thru, with Paul Baron, newly-named artist and repertoire topper at the diskery, kiboshing a deal that virtually had been consummated between his predecessors and Music Corporation of America (MCA).
ref: 1947 September 6, “Paul Baron Nixes 2 Morgan Albums”, in Joseph G. Csida, editor, The Billboard: The World’s Foremost Amusement Weekly, volume 59, number 35, Cincinnati, Oh.: Roger S. Littleford Jr.; William D. Littleford, →OCLC, page 14, column 3:
text: Chicken livers, of course, can also be gently fried, mashed in butter, and spread as a toast topper.
ref: 1999, John Yeoman, Self Reliance: A Recipe for the New Millennium, page 55:
text: UK act the Prodigy will headline the Boiler Room, with chart toppers the Ting Tings playing at 2.15pm on the green stage.
ref: 2009 January 26, Cameron Adams, “Sniffer dogs have their Big Day Out”, in Herald Sun, archived from the original on 31 May 2009:
glosses: Something that is on top.
examples: text: This is another area in which it's hard to tell the dude from the twitcher, as ratting caps and deerstalkers, flying helmets and even toppers are considered acceptably eccentric.
ref: 1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 61:
glosses: A top hat.
examples: text: In his latest standup set, his topper is a callback to the dog bowl story.
glosses: Something that exceeds those previous in a series, as a joke or prank.
examples: text: She was wearing her short pink topper and the small red hat that tilted over one eye so that she looked like a refugee starlet from the Gold Diggers film series.
ref: 1963 (date written), John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces, London: Penguin Books, published 1980 (1981 printing), →ISBN:
glosses: A short outer jacket worn by women or children.
glosses: A soft, relatively thin, piece of padding placed on top of a mattress, or forming the upper layer of a mattress.
glosses: The student who achieves the highest score in an examination.
examples: text: Cooley currently is ironing out details of the proposed kinescoping with Klaus Landsberg, topper at KTLA, over whose facilities the hour-long show has been telecast […]
ref: 1953 August 29, Billboard, page 4:
glosses: The head or chief of an organization.
examples: text: At first, in the pines, he had worked as a topper in his strong and boldest days, walking up the trees two hundred feet […]
ref: 1980, Barry Targan, Kingdoms, page 24:
text: The only problem is that the best egg toppers, which are different from egg cutters, are an investment — the Inox professional egg topper is $55 at surlatable.com .
ref: 2007 October 14, Amanda Hesser, “2000: Le Bernardin’s Croque-Monsieur”, in New York Times:
glosses: A person or tool that cuts off the top of something.
glosses: One who tops steel ingots.
glosses: A single-handed dinghy, 11 foot (3.6 metres) in length, with only one sail.
glosses: A three-square float, or file, used by comb-makers.
examples: text: One man was faithful to his pipe, and kept / Despair and deeper misery at bay, / By seeking ever for a "topper," dropped / From some spurned pipe, but that he could not find; […]
ref: 1875, E. R. Billings, Tobacco (page 189)
glosses: Tobacco left in the bottom of a pipe bowl; so called from being often taken out and placed on top of the newly filled bowl.
examples: text: It was a topper of a day for a Sale, although the heat would be hard on the beasts that had come a long way.
ref: 1957, Allan Campbell McLean, Storm Over Skye, page 194:
glosses: A fine or remarkable thing or person.
glosses: A blow on the head.
glosses: A small secondary comic strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip, and usually by the same author.
glosses: A pencil sharpener.
Derived terms: bell-topper
be-toppered
chart-topper
cherry topper
egg topper
mattress topper
open-topper
pencil topper
toppered
topper-offer
tree topper
Related terms: tip-topper
top off
topping