housetop

plural housetops · alternative house top · alternative house-top

1. The roof of a house.

   Up on the housetop, reindeer pause. / Out jumps good old Santa Claus.

   c. 1860, Benjamin R. Hamby, Up on the Housetop

   2 more examples

   26 Feare them not therefore: for there is nothing couered, that shall not be reueiled; and hidde, that shall not be knowen. 27 What I tell you in darkenesse, that speake yee in light: and what yee heare in the eare, that preach yee vpon the house tops.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 10:26–27

   Not only did the distance to the The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation practically unavailable for dwellers at this end; but the far more serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent opinion that it was better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the housetop than with the other landlord in a wide house.

   1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 41