| 释义 |
topless, a.|ˈtɒplɪs|
[f. top n.1 + -less.]
1. Having no top; without a top or summit.
1596Edw. III, iv. v. 114 There is a loftie hill, Whose top seems toplesse. 1614C. Brooke Trag. Rich. III, ii, Thou toplesse builder of great Babel's Spyre, (Damnéd Ambition!). 1859G. Meredith R. Feverel xliii, Gray topless ruins. 1910Daily Chron. 14 Jan. 6/7 Statues to well-known Parsees wearing their topless hats.
2. a. fig. Seeming to have no top or summit; immensely or immeasurably high; unbounded.
1589Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 39 The glister of the Sunne vpon the toplesse Promontorie of Sicilia. 1602Marston Antonio's Rev. i. i, And even adore my toplesse villany. a1656Bp. Hall in Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. lxviii. 19 Oh the boundless, topless, bottomless, load of divine benefits. 1707Watts Hymn, ‘Lord, we are blind’ ii, Where neither wings nor souls can fly, Nor angels climb the topless throne. 1863Pilgr. Prairies II. 134 Where topless cliffs frown down on the intruder, forbidding further passage.
†b. Than which there is nothing higher; having no superior; supreme, paramount. Obs. rare—1.
1606Shakes. Tr. & Cr. i. iii. 152 Sometime great Agamemnon, Thy toplesse deputation he puts on.
3. a. Designating or pertaining to a garment, esp. a (woman's) bathing-suit or dress, having little or no material above the waist; that does not cover the breasts and upper body.
1937Time 21 June 53/1 With another bathing-suit season at hand, local lawmakers are aiming their ordinances at males on the score of topless suits rather than at underclad females. 1964San Francisco Chron. 16 June 4/1 Saigis introduced San Francisco's first topless bathing suit for women. 1964Punch 1 July 20/2 The topless look. 1964New Statesman 24 July 116/1 A girl who wears a topless dress in the streets of Coventry or Nottingham could be doing as much for her sex as any Mrs Pankhurst. 1966C. Mackenzie Paper Lives xii. 166 And those topless dresses they're going in for now aren't nearly as topless as those dresses they were wearing about 1500 b.c. 1971S. Jepson Let. to Dead Girl xvii. 195 Her jeans were covered with dirt, and her shirt torn into topless decolleté. 1978P. Glynn In Fashion iv. 97 Rudi Gernreich's topless bathing suit had appeared in 1964.
b. Of a person (esp. a woman): naked or almost naked above the waist; bare-breasted.
1966Observer 13 Nov. 2/8 The appearance of topless waitresses. 1968‘R. Raine’ Night of Hawk xxvi. 125 Various acts, the main one being African girl dancers who perform topless. 1969Observer 7 Dec. 25/3 Topless boys with shoulder-length hair pause as they cycle past you: ‘Wanna buy some acid?’ 1970Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 29 May 19/5 (heading) Topless girl is acquitted. 1981Birds Summer 55/2 New reserve records included nude female bathers on Loch Garten, a ‘topless’ woman picking blackberries, [etc.].
c. Applied to a place or area in which women are permitted to appear naked above the waist; esp. of bars, etc., employing bare-breasted waitresses or dancers, and of beaches at which women sunbathe topless. Hence also of entertainments, sunbathing, etc., so conducted.
1967F. Warner Madrigals 30 Draining down screwdrivers in topless Broadway. 1970G. R. Taylor Doomsday Bk. x. 246 Fairbanks has become a boom-town with topless entertainment in the bars and saloons. 1972G. Baxt Burning Sappho ii. 41 For Chrissakes not one of them topless joints. Who wants flabby tits hanging over my shrimp cocktail. 1976P. Cave High Flying Birds iii. 36 This section of the beach was strictly topless. 1978N.Y. Times 30 Mar. b2/4 He has campaigned against marijuana decriminalization, ‘topless’ bars, [etc.]. 1979Globe & Mail (Toronto) 26 Jan. 5 Toronto City Council probably will move on Feb. 5 to restrict new bars offering topless or nude entertainment. 1983Times 6 July 32/1 Topless sunbathing is a well-established practice on a great many British beaches.
Hence ˈtoplessness, the condition of being topless (sense 3).
1964Punch 22 July 117/3 His pronouncement on toplessness. 1982C. Castle Folies Bergère iii. 127 Today, the question of toplessness..evokes little excitement in an age of naked beaches. |