Definition
nounThe highest or uppermost part of something.
nounThe highest or uppermost part of something., The part of something that is usually highest or uppermost.
Sentence Examples
And on top of it all, I was fired.
The wind blew harder yet when we reached the top of the hill.
She was standing at the top of the stairs.
Word Origin & History
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”), Vilamovian cöp (“braid, plait”), Yiddish צאָפּ (tsop, “braid”), Danish top (“top”), Icelandic toppur (“top”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish topp (“top, peak, summit, tip”), Italian zuffa (“brawl”).
The sense of a spinning toy is separated from this, obscurely related to Dutch top and dop in this sense, against Standard Dutch tol, and French toupie having this sense.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection.
[…]The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook,[…]."
— 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:
"To mount the V8, I simply placed it on its top, and then prepped the mobo/CPU for installation (applied thermal compound)."
— 2013 March 20, Dewayne Carel, “Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), retrieved 01 Oct 2017:
"Like glauncing light of Phoebus brightest ray;
From top to toe no place appeared bare"
— 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 39:
"All the stored vengeances of Heaven fall / On her ungrateful top!"
— c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
"to be the top of zealots"
— 1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC: