top shelf
23
4.4
- noun
:
estante superior
- The cereal is on the top shelf where the kids can't reach it.
- top shelf of the closet
- top shelf of the refrigerator
- top-shelf liquor
Top shelf is going to cost top shelf price, but the bottom shelf ain't cheap either.
- Top shelf is going to cost top shelf price, but the bottom shelf ain't cheap either.
- So now I have this Blintech carafe you've which you've hidden that I just keep it on the top shelf inside a cabinet.
- We had that, like a lot of older people had them like one of those like mechanical claws to like reach cans from the top shelf.
- How much, how much do they have to pay to, like, get there top shelf?
Examples
-
Do you want me to get something off the top shelf?
-
On the top shelf of the closet, you'll find some good white embroidered sheets.
Fiction book (1994) -
Let s put the heart medicine on the top shelf.
-
The big towels are on the top shelf.
-
I don't know why they always put what I want on the top shelf.
-
"There are some shoe boxes on the top shelf of the closet," the woman managed at last.
Fiction book (2000) -
I actually put them away on the top shelf of my bookshelf that summer.
Blog text (12) -
Oh, Harry, would you give me that hunk of jade on that top shelf there, please.
-
Quietly, in a near-whisper, he said, "It's on the top shelf."
Fiction book (1999) -
The bottle of pills was up there, on the top shelf behind the glasses, with the aspirin and antacids.
Fiction book (1994)
Synonyms
15
6.8
Very high quality or the upper drawer in a piece of furniture
6
3.9
A product that is the best and most expensive in a range
4
3.2
At the highest part of something that is above all other parts
Antonyms
How Good
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal meaning 'the highest shelf' is directly and compositionally derived from 'top' (highest) + 'shelf' (horizontal board) and will be immediately clear to a learner who knows both words. The informal sense 'of the highest quality' is a straightforward metaphorical extension of 'top' = best, a cross-linguistically common pattern, so both senses are generally inferable by a B1 learner.
Etymology
Top shelf comes from the picture of the highest shelf in a cupboard or shop where people kept their best or most valuable things. So top shelf came to mean 'of the highest quality' or just 'very good'.