top-heavy

American  

[top-hev-ee] / ˈtɒpˌhɛv i /

adjective

1. having the top disproportionately heavy; liable to fall from too great weight above.

2. relatively much heavier or larger above the center or waist than below.

   a top-heavy wrestler.

3. Finance.

   1. having a financial structure overburdened with securities that have priority in the payment of dividends.

   2. overcapitalized.

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top-heavy British  

adjective

1. unstable or unbalanced through being overloaded at the top

2. finance (of an enterprise or its capital structure) characterized by or containing too much debt capital in relation to revenue or profit so that too little is left over for dividend distributions; overcapitalized

3. (of a business enterprise) having too many executives

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Other Word Forms

• top-heavily
  adverb
• top-heaviness
  noun

Etymology

Origin of top-heavy

First recorded in 1525–35; top ¹ + heavy

Example Sentences

Broadway, top-heavy with musical parodies and attention-grabbing revivals, is having a strange season by all accounts.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 29, 2026

That raises the stakes for the February jobs report, as it could drive the top-heavy S&P 500 to finally break through its recent trading range, up or down.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 1, 2026

The big wild card in 2026 is how a top-heavy market reacts to AI-inspired volatility, from fears that the bubble will burst to warnings that new technologies could upend entire industries.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 6, 2026

Investment, he said, needed to be in "the right places" not "top-heavy organisations".

From BBC • Oct. 15, 2025

But the weight of the obelisk on even a very large vessel would make it top-heavy and unstable.

From "The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle" by Dan Gutman

Related Words

• cumbersome
• imbalanced
• overloaded
• unbalanced