Also 4–6 toppe, 4 topp (toop); (7– Sc. tap). [A word of difficult history, found (app.) in late OE. (c. 1060) as top, also c. 1325 in Walter de Bibbesworth (AFr. and Eng.), and common from late 14th c. onward. There are words coinciding in sense, and app. related in form, both in German and French, but their phonological relations are not normal: see Note below.]
1. A toy of various shapes (cylindrical, obconic, etc.), but always of circular section, with a point on which it is made to spin, usually by the sudden pulling of a string wound round it; the common whip- or whipping-top is kept spinning by lashing it with a whip.
Other tops, as the peg-top, are spun in the same way, but not whipped; some are spun by the action of a spring. Humming-top, a hollow top, usually of metal, with perforations, which makes a humming noise in spinning. Parish top, town top, a large top kept for public use, which two players or parties whipped in opposite directions. See also quot. 1911.
[c. 1060. Apollonius of Tyre (Thorpe), 13. Mid ʓelæredre handa he swang þone top mid swa micelre swiftnesse, þæt þam cynge wæs ʓeþuht swilce he of ylde to iuʓuðe ʓewænd wære.]
c. 1325. Gloss. W. de Bibbesw., l. 39 (Camb. MS.). En la rue iuez au toup [All Souls MS. a toop]; Gloss. All Souls [In the] strete plaies þe loop, Camb. MS. atte toppe, B.M. Arundel a top of tre.
13[?]. K. Alis., 1727 (Bodl. MS.). Þere fore, ich habbe bee ysent, A top and scourge to present. Ibid., 1756. Þe Top þat is rounde aboute, Signefieþ also saunz doute, Þat þe werlde þat þe rounde is, Shal be myne also I wys.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., III. xvii. (1495), d iiij b/1. All þe lynes pt ben drawe fro all þe partyes of þe thynge þt is seen, make aperaunce, shapen as a toppe, and the poynt therof is in þe black of the eye, and the brode ende in þe thynge þt is seen, as in this fygure & shappe.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 1624. Soche soteltie þai soght to solas hom with; The tables, the top, tregetre also.
c. 1425. St. Christina, xxiv., in Anglia, VIII. 128/36. Whirlynge about as a scoprelle or a toppe Þat childer pleye with.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 496/2. Top, of chylderys pley, trochus.
1567. Drant, Horace, Art Poet., B iv. The stoole ball, top, or camping ball if suche one should assaye.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, ix. (1887), 54. Fensing, and scourging the Top.
1601. [see PARISH sb. 7].
1616–61. Holyday, Persius, iii. (1673), 311. For the scourg-stick I did strive, That none his top with greater art might drive.
1623. [see TOWN 10].
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., Pref. 209. Are no more worthy of my serious hopes, Then Ratles, Pot-guns, or the Schoole-boyes Tops.
1697. R. Peirce, Bath Mem., I. x. 235. To play at Trap, and Top and Scourge, with the Boys.
1838–43. C. Knight, Pict. Shaks., Twel. N., I. iii., note. The town-top and the parish-top were one and the same. The custom … existed in the time of Elizabeth, and probably long before, of a large top being provided for the amusement of the peasants in frosty weather.
1851. [see HUMMING ppl. a. 1 c].
1868. Lockyer, Guillemin’s Heavens (ed. 3), 457. The motion of our globe has often been compared … to that of a top.
1911. Encycl. Brit., XXVII. 47/2. Other kinds of tops are made as supports for coloured disks which on revolving show a kaleidoscopic variation of patterns. The top is also used in certain games of chance, when it is generally known as a ‘teetotum.’
b. As the type of a sound sleeper, in reference to the apparent stillness of a spinning top when its axis of rotation is vertical: cf. SLEEP v. B. 3 c; esp. in to sleep like (as sound or as fast as) a top: cf. SLEEP v. B. 1 e. † Rarely fig. = sound sleeper.
c. 1616. Fletcher & Massinger, Thierry & Theod., V. ii. I will assure you, he can sleep no more Than a hooded Hawk; a centinel to him, Or one of the City Constables are tops.
1693. Congreve, Old Bach., I. 8. ’Tis but well lashing him, and he will sleep like a Top.
1711. Ramsay, On Maggy Johnstoun, x. I took a nap … As sound’s a tap.
1763. Mrs. F. Sheridan, Discov., I. ii. In two minutes I was as fast as a top.
1909. G. Tyrrell, in Q. Rev., July, 106. Its [a perfect life’s] quiet is that of a sleeping top,—the ease of intense well-balanced activity.
2. A marine gastropod having a short conical shell; any species of the genus Trochus or family Trochidæ; a top-shell. In earliest use, sea top.
a. 1682. Sir T. Browne, Norf. Fishes, Wks. 1835, IV. 332. Also trochi, trochili, or sea tops, finely variegated and pearly.
1856. Gosse, Mar. Zool., II. 118. Trochus (Linn.), Top. Shell pyramidal, nearly flat at the base.
1857. Wood, Com. Objects Sea Shore, 25. Little shells, called Tops from their form…. One of the most beautiful of these shells, the Livid Top (Trochus ziziphinus).
3. Rope-making. (Also laying-top.) See quots.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 58. Tops, to lay ropes,… are conical pieces of wood, with three or four grooves … from the butt to the end, for the strands to lie in, and form a triangle.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XVI. 485/1. The top comes away from the swivel … and the line begins to lay.
1841. Penny Cycl., XX. 154/2. A piece of wood called a top, in the form of a truncated cone, being placed between the strands, and kept during the operation gently forced into the angle formed by the strands, where they are united by the closing or twisting of the rope.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., s.v., The top is forced as far as possible toward the sledge-hook, so as to allow the twist to commence at that end, the top giving way as the twist crowds it forward to the head end of the yarns.
[Some would refer to this word ‘top of flax or wool’: see TOP sb.1 2.]
4. attrib. and Comb., as top-fashion, -shape, -spinner, -spinning (sb. and adj.), -string; top-giddy, -like, -shaped adjs.; top minor (Rope-making): see quot. 1835–6; top-shell = sense 2; top-wise adv., like a top, in the manner of a top. See also TOPMAN2.
1824. J. Symmons, trans. Æschylus’ Agamemnon, 60.
| They vanish’d deep in night, | |
| *Top-giddy, whirl’d about, or scatter’d wide. |
c. 1711. Petiver, Gazophyl., vii. 65. A small Pyramidal or *Toplike Shell.
1895. I. B. Richman, Appenzell, xi. 195. He then seizes her about the waist with both hands and proceeds to execute with her a series of top-like revolutions about the room.
1793. J. D. Belfour, Specif. Patent, No. 1939. 10. To prevent the strand from being twisted too quick, I have introduced an instrument which I call the *top minor.
1835–6. Encycl. Metrop. (1845). VIII. 754/2. The yarns were all united … round the notches of an implement which he [J. D. Belfour] called a top minor.
1776. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., Explan. Terms 394. Turbinatum, *top-shaped, like an obverse cone.
c. 1711. Petiver, Gazophyl., Dec. VII. Tab. 70. The large Barbadoes Magpye *Top-shell.
1885. C. F. Holder, Marvels Animal Life, 83. Usually a Top-shell (Trochus).
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., III. xvii. (Tollem. MS.). Þe syȝte is nouȝt mad but by a piramys schape a *top wise [orig. per piramidem; 1535 shapen top wisej þt comeþ to þe ye. Ibid., X. v. In the moost ouermest poynt of his shappe that is a topwyse the flamme is moost hote.
1900. F. T. Bullen, Idylls of Sea, v. 27. The angry currents … whirling us topwise in defiance of wind and helm.
[Note. The meaning of top in the OE. quot. is only inferential, as the OE. Apollonius here diverges from the Latin original, which contains no such terms as turbo, trochus or other word meaning ‘top’; but it is difficult to see what else the OE. word could mean. In c. 1325 the sense is clear. On the continent, the name of the toy in Holland generally is now tol; but top is used in East and West Flanders, Antwerp, and parts of Brabant; also in Friesland, Groningen, and Drente, in the North Netherlands; but this has not been found earlier than 1500. In Brussels, Mechlin, South Brabant generally, and Limburg, the form used is dop. Dop, doppe, was also the MDu. form, occurring from 13th c., and was the normal LG. equivalent of OHG. topfo, topf, MHG. topfe, topf, Ger. dial. topf (= Ger. kreisel) in this sense. Of this comparatively late substitution of top for dop in Flemish, etc., no explanation appears, and it does not help to account for the use of top in English in 1060 or even in 1325. The most that could be suggested would be that the word meaning turbo or trochus has in both cases run together in form with that meaning apex (TOP sb.1). On the other hand, the use in 1325 of an Anglo-French toup (toop) in this sense seems to form a link with F. toupie (also † topic) and its kindred words, OF. topet or toupet2, obs. F. toupin, and the derivative vbs. OF. topier or toupier, topiner or toupiner, and toupiller. But the etymology of toupie and its family is beset by as many difficulties as that of top; it does not answer in form to either OHG. topfo or MLG. doppe.]
