Now chiefly literary. [f. TOPE v.2 + -ER1.] One who topes or drinks a great deal; a hard drinker; a drunkard.
1673. S’ too him Bayes, 56. Your right topers now, when a friend begins to flag … use to rouse him up again.
1675. Cotton, Scoffer Scofft, 60. A sturdy piece of flesh, and proper, A merry Grig, and a true Toper.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 41. The cobbler … sits among his fellow topers at the two-penny club.
1816. J. Wilson, City of Plague, I. iv. 153. Bacchanalian song By toper chaunted o’er the flowing bowl.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xxxvi. Away with four fresh horses from the Bald-faced Stag, where topers congregate about the door admiring.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 162. Topers are prone to tuberculous affections.
Hence Toperdom, Toperism (nonce-wds.).
1891. Scott. Leader, 30 Dec., 4. Much rejoicing has … been caused in London toperdom by the issue by certain enterprising publicans of ‘free insurances.’
1896. Speaker, 6 June, 618. The besotted toperism of so many of his companions.
