Tops

How to spell tops

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tops

What does tops mean?

1. nounMore than one top, such as upper garments or the uppermost parts of things.
2. verbExceeds, surpasses, or sits at the highest point of something.
3. adverbAt the very most; used after a figure to mark its upper limit.

Tops in a sentence

• noun

  She folded the summer tops and put them in the suitcase.

• verb

  Her latest novel tops the bestseller list this week.

• adverb

  The whole repair should cost fifty pounds tops.

• noun

  The screw tops from the old jars no longer fit properly.

• verb

  The new model easily tops the old one for fuel economy.

• adverb

  The drive takes twenty minutes tops at this time of day.

Where does tops come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural and verb form of 'top', which descends from the Old English 'topp', a native Germanic word that meant the highest point, a crest, or a tuft of hair. Related forms appear across the older Germanic languages, including Old Norse and Old High German, all carrying the basic idea of an uppermost part or peak. Over the centuries the noun broadened from a literal summit to almost anything at the upper end, from the lid of a jar to the upper garment a person wears, while the verb 'to top' grew the sense of reaching or exceeding the highest point. The informal adverbial use, meaning 'at the very most', simply pushes the same 'highest possible' idea to a ceiling on a figure. Because the spelling is short, phonetic, and entirely regular, the only thing to remember is that the plural and the verb both just add a plain '-s'.

How the word is built

• top (from Old English topp: summit, crest)
• -s (plural/third-person verb ending)