ˈtop-ˌdress, v.
[f. top n.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 F. B. Head Stokers & Pokers i. (1851) 13 The wealth..almost without metaphor top-dressed the greater portion of the old as well as of the new world. 1862 G. J. 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. |