tops

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of top.

   The mountain tops were still capped with snow in late spring.

   Several spinning tops lay scattered across the playroom.

   Note

   One spelling covers many kinds of top: lids and caps, shirts and other upper garments, the platforms at a ship's masthead, and the highest parts of anything at all. The plural is regular whatever the meaning, so only context separates a drawer of tops from the tops of the hills. The same spelling also serves as the verb form, as in "she tops the list."

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of top.

   The new model tops the previous version in nearly every benchmark.

   She tops each cake with a swirl of cream before serving.

   Note

   Present-tense agreement serves every sense of the verb, from finishing a cake to beating a rival or leading a chart. One use needs care. In British slang, reflexive top means to kill oneself, so "he tops himself" is not a compliment. Otherwise the form is unremarkable: the -s simply marks a single third-person subject.

3. 3
   adverbcolloquial

   At the very most; as the highest possible amount.

   We'll be done in an hour tops, so don't wait up.

   The old car is worth maybe two thousand dollars tops.

   Similarmax

   Note

   An adverb that trails the figure it caps: two pages, tops; an hour tops. It always follows the number and never comes before it. In writing it is often set off by a comma, the way a spoken afterthought would be. It belongs to casual speech and quick notes. In formal prose, "at most" or "no more than" does the same job without the breeziness.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   In darts, the double-20 segment, the narrow scoring area at the very top of the board.

   With one dart left, she went for tops and clinched the leg.

   Players often aim at tops to close out a game on a high double.

   Note

   Darts players use this as shorthand for double 20, the outer bed at the top of the board, worth forty. Above all it is a finishing target. A player who reaches forty is said to be left with tops, and going for tops means trying to win the leg on that double. Despite the -s, it names a single target, so "tops is the bed" rather than "tops are."

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