topping

TOP'PING, ppr. Covering the top; capping; surpassing; cropping; lopping.

1. a. Fine; gallant.

[But Johnson's definition is probably incorrect.]

2. Proud; assuming superiority. [This is the sense in which the common people of N. England use the word, and I believe the true sense, but it is not elegant.]

TOP'PING, n. In seamen's language, the act of pulling one extremity of a yard higher than the other.