atop

Etymology

It is formed from English a- (“on”) + top (“highest part”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} with the prefix of asleep, aside and afoot, which goes back to Old English an (“on, in”).^[2] At first it was written with a space or a hyphen, and it was not fully established as one word until the late 19th century.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) likewise derived it from a and top.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

On or at the top: Merriam-Webster dates both the preposition and the adverb to 1638.^[5] The OED's first record is of the adverb, in an advertisement in the Perfect Diurnall of 1653, and of the preposition, "on the top of", in Gurnall's Christian in Armour (1658); Etymonline also dates the adverb to the 1650s.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The adverb followed by of is recorded from 1672, in William Penn;^[3] Merriam-Webster still lists atop of as a less common form of the preposition.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined the word as "on the top; at the top", quoting Milton's Paradise Lost ("Atop whereof") and Arbuthnot, who wrote of oil that "swims atop of the decoction".^[7] At the end of the 19th century it was a dialect word in Ireland and over much of England, between Northumberland and Yorkshire in the north and Devon and East Anglia in the south, often in the form atop o' and sometimes figuratively.^[8] Merriam-Webster also records a use after a noun, "on or at the top", from 1658.^[5]

Timeline

• 1638 – preposition and adverb, on or at the top.^[5]
• 1653 – adverb, on or at the top, above.^[3]
• 1658 – preposition, on the top of.^[3]
• 1672 – atop of.^[3]

Meanings

Preposition

1. On top of, or at the top of: A gull stood atop the lamppost.^{[9][5][10][3]}
2. atop of: on top of (less common).^[5][3]

Adverb

1. On or at the top; to the top.^{[9][5][10][3]}

Adjective

1. Placed after a noun: on or at the top: a cake with cherries atop.^[5][10]

Related words

• top
• on

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt