v. [f. TOP sb.1 + DRESS v. 13 c.] trans. To manure on the surface, as land, grass, or any crop. Also absol.
1733. W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 15. Much better than top-dressing the Grain after it is in the Ground.
1764. Museum Rust., III. xii. 47. The advantages of top-dressing wheat in the spring with soot, or other light manure.
1852. Beck’s Florist, June, 117. To enable us to ‘top-dress,’ as it is termed; i.e. to clean the surface, and cover it with a mixture of half-rotten manure and loam.
b. transf. and fig.
1834. Tait’s Mag., I. 381/2. Before I was sixteen, [I] grinded, and partly top-dressed the Autobiography and Opinions of Men and Things, at home and abroad, of Stephen Fox, Esq.
1849. Sir F. B. Head, Stokers & Pokers, i. 13. The wealth … almost without metaphor top-dressed the greater portion of the old as well as of the new world.
1862. Whyte-Melville, Ins. Bar, 342. Plumtree was a mere boy,… actually shaving for whiskers, top-dressing with balm of Columbia, and raising an abundant crop of pimples as the result.
