Now only literary or arch. [Known 1654; origin obscure. Synonymous with the earlier TOP v.3, but, as in prec., the substitution of long o offers difficulties. See Note below, and that to TOPE int.]
1. trans. To drink, esp. to drink copiously and habitually.
1634. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, IV. ix. 230. Tope it about mine Host; the wine bags now Had been as good, as milke of the red Cow.
c. 1679. Roxb. Ball. (1890), VII. 13. They tope the brandy, beer, and ale.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), I. 41. And could we tope an ocean His due we hardly give.
1772. Mrs. Delany, in Life & Corr., Ser. II. (1862), I. 410. Fat John will no more … snore by the great kitchen fire or tope Staffordshire ale!
1876. T. S. Egan, trans. Heine’s Atta Troll, etc., 250. Our Rhine-wine constantly toping.
2. intr. To drink largely or in large draughts.
1667. Dryden, Maiden Queen, V. i. I’ll Tope with you. I’ll Sing with you, I’ll Dance with you.
1671. Crowne, Juliana, I. I can go into the Cardinal’s cellar and tie my nose to one barrel, and my horse to another, and tope who shall tope most for a wager.
a. 1701. Sedley, Toper, Wks. (1766), 27. Let’s tope and be merry, Be jolly and cheery.
1754. Connoisseur, No. 9, ¶ 4. On Sundays, while the husbands are toping at the alehouse,… their wives … go to church.
1827. Hood, Don’t you Smell Fire, 7. Now where can the turn-cock be drinking?… But he still may tope on, for I’m thinking That the plugs are as dry as himself.
Hence Toping vbl. sb. (also attrib.) and ppl. a.
(The word in first quot. may be for TOPPING.)
1667. Dryden & Dk. Newcastle, Sir Martin Mar-all, V. iii (1668), 65. A rare toping health this.
a. 1680. Butler, Epigr. on Club of Sots. The jolly Members of a toping Club.
1690. Dryden, Don Sebastian, I. i. This Mufty … is some English Renegade, he talks so savourly of toping.
a. 1701. Sedley, To Phillis, Wks. (1766), 20. A club of witty, toping boys.
1709. O. Dykes, Eng. Prov. & Refl. (ed. 2), 298. Tipling, and Toping, and Bouzing above measure is as bad as Bouncing in our Liquor.
1753. Scots Mag., Oct., 491/2. I had … got by heart several toping … songs.
1855. Kingsley, Westw. Ho! ii. To amuse themselves in something more intellectual than mere toping in pot-houses.
1884. Edin. Rev., Oct., 314. The country squires who sang Durfey’s songs at their ‘toping-tables.’
[Note. One theory would identify this with TOP v.2, TOPE v.1, with the primary sense ‘to tilt a bottle or vessel in drinking,’ hence ‘to drink with great draughts, or copiously’; another would connect this vb. with TOPE int., for which there is something to be said; only that TOP v.2 occurs a good deal earlier.]
