topman
topman noun: the man stationed in the top on a sailing vessel, responsible for the setting of the sails.
Noun
topman (plural topmen)
- The man stationed in the top on a sailing vessel, responsible for the setting of the sails
- There, when not actually engaged on the yards yet higher aloft, the topmen, who as such had been picked out for youth and activity, constituted an aerial club lounging at ease against the smaller stun'sails rolled up into cushions, spinning yarns like the lazy gods, and frequently amused with what...1924, Herman Melville, chapter 8, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.
- The uppermost sawyer in a sawpit; a topsman.
- A top, dom.
- Back in the alcove I watched as a bearded daddy type whipped a guy who was bent over the sawhorse. The topman kept the tip of his tongue poked between his lips like a little kid hard at work in a coloring book.1989 February 12, Christopher Wittke, “A Leather Belt Is The Perfect Accessory...”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 30, page 8
Forms of topman
| plural | topmen |
|---|
Origin of topman
From top + -man.
Questions about topman
- What does topman mean?
- Topman means the man stationed in the top on a sailing vessel, responsible for the setting of the sails.
- What part of speech is topman?
- Topman is a noun.
- What is the plural of topman?
- The plural of topman is topmen.
Words near topman in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: topman (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: “topman.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/topman. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.