Word.ws English Dictionary

top-sawyer

top-sawyer is the alternative form of topsawyer.

Meaning of topsawyer

Noun

topsawyer (plural topsawyers)

  1. (historical) A sawyer holding the upper handle of a pit saw and standing in the upper position above the saw pit.
    • Well; she has married a topsawyer — I believe the ablest of them all, and probably the most unprincipled [...]1880, Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, “LXIII.”, in Endymion, page 281
  2. (archaic, idiomatic) A highly skilled, prominent, or commanding leader.
    • A fine colt. If Trevisco which won the Foal Stakes does not turn out a topsawyer I shall be greatly surprised [...]1896, Lexington, Ky., Record Pub. Co, The Thoroughbred Record, Vol. 88, No. 1, page 124
    Synonyms:
    top dog

Forms of top-sawyer

pluraltop-sawyers

Questions about top-sawyer

What is top-sawyer the alternative form of?
Top-sawyer is the alternative form of topsawyer.

Words near top-sawyer in the dictionary

  1. top-roper
  2. top-ropers
  3. top-ropes
  4. top-roping
  5. top-rung
  6. top-sawyer
  7. top-secret
  8. top-selling
  9. top-shaped
  10. top-shelf
  11. top-slicing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: top-sawyer (page history and authors); topsawyer (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.

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