topknot (top not)

1. Any knot, tuft, or crest worn or growing on the head: applied to any egret, crest, or tuft of feathers on the head of a bird, the hair on the top of the human head, any projecting or conspicuous ornament for the head, etc.; specifically, a bow, as of ribbon, forming a part of the head-dre of women in the seventeenth century. We had that, among other laudable fashions, from London. I think it came over with your mode of wearing high topknots. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, i. 1. It is undoubtedly from hence [the Danish language) that the Bride-Favours, or the Top - Knots at Marriages, which were considered as Emblems of the Ties of Duty and Affection between the Bride and her Spouse, have been de Bourne's Pop . Antiq . (1777), p. 349. 2. The subject of a discourse, argument, or lit- erary composition, or the subject of any dis- tinct part of a discourse, etc.; any matter treated of: now the usual meaning of the word. It often happens... that the poet and the senate of Rome have both chosen the same topic to flatter their em- per or upon, and have sometimes fallen upon the same thought. Add is on, Ancient Medals, i. Deem'st thou not our later time Yields topic meet for cla ic rhyme? were 3. In med., a remedy locally applied. Amongst topics or outward medicines, none are more precious than baths. Burton, Anat. of Mel., p. 418. Transcendental topic. See transcendental. =Syn. 2. Theme, Point, etc. See subject. topical (top'i-kal), a. [ The men of Archenfeld in Here ford shire claimed by custom to lead the van-guard; but surely this priviledge was topical , and confined to the Welsh wars. Fuller , Worthies, II. 145. He was now intending to visite Staff ords hire, and, as he had of Oxfords hire, to give us the natural, topical , political, and mechanical history. Evelyn , Diary, July 8, 1675. The topical application of the artificial alizarine colours. Workshop Receipts , 2d ser., p. 215. 2. Specifically, in med., pertaining or applied to a particular part of the body; local. He is robust and healthy, and his change of colour was not accompanied with any sensible disease, either general or topical. Jefferson, Notes on Virginia (1787), p. 120. For the most part, however, in this country, physicians have abandoned severe topical measures, limiting them selves to antiseptic and soothing applications. Austin Flint , Diphtheria (Amer. Cyc.). 3. Pertaining to or proceeding from a topic, or category of arguments; hence, merely probable, as an argument. IMG:content-0596.png:[blocks in formation] smear -dab. which have a crest. - Miller's topknot. Same as topknotted (top'noted), a. Adorned with bows and topknots. George Eliot, Silas Marner, xi.