black top

plural black tops

1. alternativeAlternative form of blacktop.

   One day the county put the word out that they was going to put down black top on the rock roads.

   2007, Lee Wells, Escape From Mississippi

   2 more examples

   Maybe they will pass a bill requiring an investigation into just how much black top and concrete is used in the transportation system.

   2008, Floyd Grooms, Global Warming, A Different Approach, page 12

   Rolling down the black top little white broken lines swiftly passing my face, I look like I'm going through a time warp slicing through the darkness of space.

   2012, Ron Hester, Inside My Mind, page 203

2. UKuncommonA middle-market tabloid; a tabloid newspaper aimed at the middle class, perceived as having intermediate journalistic standards between a broadsheet and a red top.

   Tabloid-style journalism exists in many societies, but the various elements that co-exist in a red-top or black-top are found on separate platforms in other countries.

   2020 June 9, Steve Buckledee, Tabloiding the Truth: It's the Pun Wot Won It, Springer Nature, →ISBN, page 2

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, top.

present singular third person black tops · participle present black topping · participle past black topped · past black topped

1. alternativeAlternative form of blacktop.

   The State will black top the road and stabilize the shoulders before returning it to the town.

   1969, Annual Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of Steuben County

   2 more examples

   We won't black top your property for you because this is your own property, but we will loan you the money interest free if you will black top your driveway, providing you will give us another lease on that other 50 feet of land that you bought free.

   1955, United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Small Business, Distribution Problems, page 1025

   The PWD will black top the road and immediately either the PHED or Power Corporation will dig up the road to lay pipes or cables.

   2015, Ningthouja Lancha, Kangla Lanpung Volume XI Issue 1: Winter 2015