The piece that forms or is at the top of anything; spec. † a. The best or finest piece; the chef-d’œuvre, masterpiece. Obs. rare. b. The head. colloq. c. = TOPIT. d. Shoe-making: see quots.
a. 1682. Bunyan, Greatness of Soul, Wks. (ed. Offor), I. 122. The soul is the … top-piece that He hath made in all the visible world. Ibid. (1682), Holy War, i. 3. The Top-piece beyond any thing else that he did in that country.
b. 1838. in Eng. Dial. Dict.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 172–3. Where the Acephali, with whom Herodotus, in a kind of ecstasy, wound up his climax of men with abnormal top-pieces?
c. 1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 966. The topit, or top-piece.
d. 1911. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 993/1. Lifts and top-pieces for the heels. Ibid., 993/2. The top-pieces, similar to the outsoles, are put on and nailed down to the lifts.
