a. Disproportionately heavy at the top; having the upper part so heavy as to overbalance the lower; hence, unstable and inclined to topple. Also transf. and fig.
a. 1533. Frith, Answ. More (1829), 184. They have made it so top-heavy, that it is surely like to have a fall.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 36. That they make theire loades broade, and large, but not over high and toppe-heavy, for feare of throwinge over … the waine.
1647. H. More, Song Soul, I. II. lxxvii. Top heavy was his head with earthly policy.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 81. If your Trees grow too top heavy, you must abate the Head to lighten them.
1862. T. A. Trollope, Lenten Journ., xvi. 259. We were top-heavy with eight or nine great sacks of letters on the roof [of the vehicle].
1889. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., II. 118. Do not make your picture topheavy with clouds.
1895. K. Grahame, Gold. Age (1904), 20. Harold,… top-heavy with eagerness of possession, had fallen into the pond.
b. Said of an intoxicated person: tipsy.
1687. in Dk. Buckhm.’s Wks. (1705), II. 120. Jack was too top-heavy to escape undiscovered.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Top-heavy, Drunk.
1823. T. W. L., in Hone, Every-day Bk. (1827), 11. 859. Being top-heavy with liquor, he … lost his balance.
Hence Top-heaviness; Top-heavyish a.
1853. G. J. Cayley, Las Alforjas, II. 204. A noble top-heavyish Gothic tower.
1869. Sir E. J. Reed, Iron-Clad Ships, vii. 137. To the unprofessional eye there does appear to be a ‘top-heaviness’ in armoured ships.
1889. Welch, Text Bk. Naval Archit., iii. 63. The mistaken view … that ‘top-heaviness’ was the cause of the excessive rolling.
