top-dress

American

[top-dres] / ˈtɒpˌdrɛs /

verb (used with object)

top-dressed, top-drest, top-dressing

to manure (land) on the surface.

top-dress British

verb

(tr) to spread manure or fertilizer on the surface of (land) without working it into the soil

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of top-dress

First recorded in 1725–35; top ¹ + dress

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Return anything too chunky to the bin, and top-dress your plants indoors or out with the good stuff.

From Seattle Times • Dec. 8, 2023

First he tells me to top-dress the upper lot, and then right off he wants me to harness up and go to the mill.

From A Princess in Calico by Black, Edith Ferguson

If the soil is heavy, top-dress with grit in the fall.

From Making A Rock Garden by Adams, H. S. (Henry Sherman)

After this I top-dress heavy with manure, leaving it lie on the land until spring.

From Asparagus, its culture for home use and for market: a practical treatise on the planting, cultivation, harvesting, marketing, and preserving of asparagus, with notes on its history by Hexamer, F. M.

It is a great nuisance for a public man who is liable to come home late at night to have to top-dress his head before he can retire.

From A Guest at the Ludlow and Other Stories by Edgar Wilson

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023