nouns - Meaning of "top" in "to sleep as sound as a top"


From "The Early Bird", by George MacDonald.



A little bird sat on the edge of her nest;


Her yellow-beaks slept as sound as tops;


Day-long she had worked almost without rest,


And had filled every one of their gibbous crops;



What is the meaning of tops here?



Answer



It means they slept quite soundly (that is, quite deeply). Note, an entry in Willis's Current Notes, on page 48 of the June, 1857 issue, makes the following claim about “sleeps like a Top” or “as sound as a Top”:



The saying is derived from the Italian in which language, the word topo signifies a mouse; it is the generic name, and applied indiscriminantly to the common mouse, the field mouse, or the dormouse, hence the Italian proverb – Ei dorme come un topo, or in English – He sleeps like a Top!



Edit: Another source (Varieties of Literature: Being, Principally, Selections from the Portfolio of the Late John Brady, Esq., 1826) on page 14, quoting from Gentlemen's Magazine, 1793, gives a similarly-worded etymology for the phrase, suggesting it might be the source for the 1857 entry. Gentlemen's Magazine also commented:



...we generally imagine the simile taken from the momentary pause of a peg-top, or humming-top, when its rotatory motion is at the height. But no such thing: the word top is Italian.



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