Word.ws English Dictionary

topwise

topwise adverb: in the manner of a spinning top.

Adverb

topwise (not comparable)

  1. In the manner of a spinning top.
    • […] spun topwise by swift floods […]1910, The Saturday Evening Post (volume 183, issues 1-13, page 51)
  2. At or toward the top.
    • Grelun Landon, of Hill & Range Songs, Inc., New York, reports things looking up in the country field for his firm, which presently has six sides riding topwise in the charts.1960 June 20, Billboard, page 64
  3. With the upper part foremost.
    • They had forted up their house, cutting the bottom-land timbers, lopping off their limbs, and driving the tree trunks into the ground topwise, to make a stockade big enough to hold them and some neighbors — the ones willing to stay there.2006, David Taylor, Pride of Place: A Contemporary Anthology of Texas Nature Writing, page 55

Origin of topwise

top + -wise

Questions about topwise

What does topwise mean?
Topwise means in the manner of a spinning top.
What part of speech is topwise?
Topwise is an adverb.

Words near topwise in the dictionary

  1. toputs
  2. topwater
  3. topwear
  4. topweight
  5. topweights
  6. topwise
  7. topwork
  8. topworked
  9. topworking
  10. topworks
  11. toquake

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: topwise (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: “topwise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/topwise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.