a. humorous colloq. [app. f. top loft, topmost gallery or story + -ICAL, after words like magnifical, tyrannical, etc.] High-flown, ‘high and mighty,’ ‘highfalutin,’ ‘stuck-up’; also lit. lofty, elevated.
1823. Blackw. Mag., XIV. 104. Very toploftical to be sure.
c. 1824. Mrs. Carlyle, Early Lett. (1889), 84. At the first she was quite intolerable with her fine-lady airs, and toploftical notions.
1841. Times-Picayune, 21 Sept., 2/2. These productions, in most cases, are made up of pseudo patriotism, bravery that oozes out in ‘top-loftical’ language.
1884. J. Burroughs, Birds & Poets, 74. Our toploftical brilliancy and cleverness.
1892. Century Mag., April, 837/2. Whose turban handkerchief towered in a toploftical structure.
1894. Harper’s Mag., May, 940/2. A few days of toploftical strutting around town.
1898. Speaker, 22 Jan., 100/2. Eaten up by pride and a toploftical sense of independence.
