Word.ws English Dictionary

top the charts

top the charts verb: to be the most popular recording at a particular time.

Verb

top the charts (third-person singular simple present tops the charts, present participle topping the charts, simple past and past participle topped the charts)

  1. (also, idiomatic) To be the most popular recording at a particular time.
    • At the last count in late July, the accumulated mileage of the Pendolino had notched a mind-boggling 287,859,672 (unit 390132 City of Birmingham topping the charts with 5,482,316 miles having passed under its wheels).2022 October 5, Nick Brodrick, “Pendolinos: a huge role to play”, in RAIL, number 967, page 38

Forms of top the charts

third-person singular presenttops the charts
present participletopping the charts
past participletopped the charts
pasttopped the charts

Questions about top the charts

What does top the charts mean?
Top the charts means to be the most popular recording at a particular time.
What part of speech is top the charts?
Top the charts is a verb.
What is the past tense of top the charts?
The past tense of top the charts is topped the charts.

Words near top the charts in the dictionary

  1. top surgeons
  2. top surgeries
  3. top surgery
  4. top ten
  5. top tens
  6. top the charts
  7. top tier
  8. top tiers
  9. top to bottom
  10. top to bottoms
  11. top to tail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: top the charts (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 the charts.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/top_the_charts. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.