Word.ws English Dictionary

silver top

silver top noun: full cream milk, normally homogenised and pasteurised, having a silvery top to the bottle.

Noun

silver top (countable and uncountable, plural silver tops)

  1. (UK) Full cream milk, normally homogenised and pasteurised, having a silvery top to the bottle.
  2. (slang) An old person.
    • Still I must confess that I was shocked at the president's complaint of the senility of the present Board of Overseers, […] as absurd as the assertion in one of your journals, that your Mr. Evarts 'was too old for a senator' and that he 'was too old to change his mind.' […] I contend that these...1885, Henry Lee, “[Speech to Harvard Club of New York]”, in John T. Morse, Jr., editor, Memoir of Colonel Henry Lee, Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., published 1905, →OCLC, pages 135–136
    • Just ask yourselves this question, you older men, you silver-tops here—What was done with toxic thyroid disease before men like Charles Mayo, the elder Kocher, Crile, Miles F. Porter and other men established the surgery of toxic thyroid upon a fairly rational basis?1922 December, W. D. Gatch, J. R. Eastman (commentator), “Surgical Aspects of Endocrinology”, in Journal of the Indiana State Medical Association, volume 15, number 12, Fort Wayne: The Association...

Examples of silver top in a sentence

  • As we all become "Silver tops" as seniors are referred to, we all may have problems around our sexuality, not the least of being, can we get it and keep it up.1997 June 12, Raj Secura, “Ann Lander bashes men (again)!”, in soc.men (Usenet):
  • In fact, I'm betting he and the white silver tops in the Democratic leadership were rooting for him because they're expecting to "own our boy" when he's in the WH.2008 August 30, Joe Orthodox, “The Palin Pick”, in alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox (Usenet):
  • It's good to see a superhero movie finally giving some consideration to us "silver tops"!2011, Patton Oswalt, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, New York: Scribner, →ISBN, page 260:
  • You know, us 'silver tops' are leaving the profession or retiring.2022 October 13, Charlie Carey, quoting Kath-Ann Terrett, “B.C. nurses rally outside VCH, as Hospital Employees' Union ratifies new...

Synonyms of silver top

19 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of silver top

pluralsilver tops

Questions about silver top

What does silver top mean?
Silver top means full cream milk, normally homogenised and pasteurised, having a silvery top to the bottle.
How do you use silver top in a sentence?
As we all become "Silver tops" as seniors are referred to, we all may have problems around our sexuality, not the least of being, can we get it and keep it up.
What part of speech is silver top?
Silver top is a noun.
What is the plural of silver top?
The plural of silver top is silver tops.

Words near silver top in the dictionary

  1. silver thaw
  2. silver thaws
  3. silver thistle
  4. silver tongue
  5. silver tongues
  6. silver top
  7. silver tops
  8. silver train
  9. silver trains
  10. silver tree
  11. silver trees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: silver top (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-silver top.ogg.

Cite this entry: “silver top.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/silver_top. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.