topmost
adjUK /tɒpˈməʊst/ · US /tɑpˈmoʊst/
Etymology From top + -most.
1
At or nearest to the top; uppermost; being the very highest.
- Well! well! ^([sic]) cried I, as the coachman turn’d in at the gates, I find I shall do very well : and by the time he had wheel’d round the court, and brought me up to the door, I found myself so much the better for my own lecture, that I neither ascended the steps like a victim to justice, who was to part with life upon the topmost, nor did I mount them with a skip and a couple of strides, as I do when I fly up, Eliza! to thee, to meet it.1768, Mr. Yorick, A Sentimental Journey, page 114:
- When he has defended THE TRIPLE FORTRESS of Religion, Morality, and Literature, from it's^([sic]) foundation to the topmost battlements, must he be left on the field without the common honours of a common soldier?1798, Thomas James Mathias, A Translation of the passages from Greek, Latin, Italian, and French Writers, quoted in the Prefaces and Notes to the Pursuits of Literature; A poem, in Four Dialogues, London T. Becket, page IX (60):
2 more examples
- Does it narrow our notions of life's wonder and dignity to peer into the abyss of being, and learn something of the marvellous laws of things — to discover the same mysterious Something in a snow-flake, in the scent of a rose, in the topmost star of unascended heaven," and in some prayer or aspiration in the soul of man?1800, William Hurrell Mallock, The New Republic: Or, Culture, Faith, and Philosophy in an English Country House, London Chatto and Windus, page 220:
- While he worked to ply fingers back apart more than not, Kaiselan practised his crouch exploring the outpost's more topmost levels.2015, Seth Giolle, The Cane Stories:
2
Figuratively Of greatest status, esteem, or prestige; best.
- If Aeschylus’ art at its topmost excellence is to be seen only in the trilogy of indissolubly connected parts, it is not true, as is sometimes maintained, that his art is to be judged exclusively on the basis of the three-part drama.1924, Herbert Weir Smyth, “VI. Orestea. I: Agamemnon”, in Aeschylean Tragedy, page 153:
- Related terms
- leftmost, rightmost