red top
noun British
A tabloid newspaper: all the red tops suffered alarming declines...
- Strangely I've found it next to impossible to find anything on the web for this, just shows that apart from the red tops none of the newspapers really cared about this.
- Today pensions is front page news in red tops and broadsheets alike, and one of the hottest political topics around.
- The war against the tabloids, or red tops, is hard-fought, particularly as these papers can flood the market with very cheap copies.
Origin
1990s: from the red background on which the titles of certain British newspapers are printed.