tope1
/təʊp
/verb [no object] archaic or literary
Drink alcohol to excess, especially on a regular basis: he was toping the while from a flagon of sack
Derivatives
toper
- Furtive and nimble tipplers and topers nightly dodged through alleys and back yards under the noses of the flashlamp-carrying guards.
- One of them asks all serious topers to banish moderate drinkers from parties and to drink until speech becomes impaired and walking impossible.
- He looks at the spectator good-naturedly and unintelligently, with the suspicious expression of an inveterate toper [habitual drinker].
Origin
Mid 17th century: perhaps an alteration of obsolete top 'overbalance'; perhaps from Dutch toppen 'slant or tilt a ship's yard'.
Rhymes
tope2
/təʊp/noun
Another term for stupa.
Origin
From Punjabi thūp, thop 'barrow, mound', apparently related to Sanskrit stūpa.
tope3
/təʊp/noun
(In South Asia) a grove or plantation of trees, especially mango trees.In 1894, Rice reported that there were about 2000 topes with about 100,000 trees in the entire Bangalore District.
Origin
From Telugu tōpu or Tamil tōppu.
tope4
/təʊp/noun
A small greyish slender-bodied shark, occurring chiefly in inshore waters.
- Genus Galeorhinus, family Carcharhinidae: the East Atlantic G. galeus, favoured by British sea anglers, and the commercially important G. australis of Australia.
- What looked like a cross between a tope and a bull huss looked decidedly unhappy and I had to run over and get a glimpse of the biggest fish I had ever seen taken from the shore.
- The tope shark is considered harmless to humans because of its small size and its preference for small prey items.
Origin
Late 17th century: perhaps of Cornish origin.