topple
Americanverb (used without object)
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topples,
present (3rd person singular)
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toppled,
past participle, past
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toppling
present participle
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to fall forward, as from having too heavy a top; pitch; tumble down.
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to lean over or jut, as if threatening to fall.
verb
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to tip over or cause to tip over, esp from a height
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(intr) to lean precariously or totter
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(tr) to overthrow; oust
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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topplesimple
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topplessimple
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have toppledperfect
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has toppledperfect
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am topplingprogressive
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are topplingprogressive
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is topplingprogressive
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have been topplingperfect progressive
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has been topplingperfect progressive
Past
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toppledsimple
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had toppledperfect
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was topplingprogressive
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were topplingprogressive
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had been topplingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of topple
Explanation
To topple something is to knock it down. A house of cards can be toppled — so can a government. Things can topple in several ways. If a building collapses or falls down for any reason, it topples. If you knocked over another student, you toppled that person. Governments that are overthrown are also said to be toppled. When you see the word topple, someone or something is going down.
Vocabulary lists containing topple
100 Great Words from "Fahrenheit 451" -- Part I Vocabulary
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"Sorry, Wrong Number," Vocabulary from the play
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The War That Saved My Life
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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.
See Examples For:
A Nobel Prize-winning academic economist, Sargent helped topple the original Keynesian model of inflation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
European football looks like an outlier, struggling to gain enough support to topple him.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
Back in March, Kerr had announced a plan dubbed Project 222, an audacious promise to slice 2.22 seconds off his personal best and topple the record, held since 1999 by Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
A cliff averaging one foot a year might actually not do anything dramatic for 20 years, and then a 20-foot collapse will abruptly topple in one go.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
So if you tried to turn it from the exact middle point, one end would be heavier than the other and the whole thing would topple over.
From "The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle" by Dan Gutman
At another dance, he gets his spurs entangled in his partner’s skirts and topples to the floor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026
But after a brush with death — a bookshelf she’s assembling topples on her — she’s inspired to take more action.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2024
"It is not like a pencil balancing on its end that when touched topples over."
From Salon ● Mar. 18, 2024
You look so shocked when a dog topples your precious kid over!
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 18, 2023
Every once in a while, a gust topples a glass or caravel, and there’s a loud crash.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
At the end of January, Storm Kristin toppled thousands of electricity and telecom poles across central Portugal, cutting power and communications to hundreds of thousands of people - some for weeks.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Four years later, veteran Bay Area Rep. Mike Honda was toppled by fellow Democrat Ro Khanna, now viewed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
No meter is safe, it seems, especially not the one that was toppled over and left wedged between the pharmacy and an S&L.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Hasina's virtual meeting with reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Delhi was her first meeting with the media since she was toppled after 15 years in power.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
When high winds had toppled the forty-two-foot-high National Christmas Tree a few years earlier, the garden had survived intact.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
I sway to the left, then to the right, before finally toppling forward.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
As the models from Anthropic and OpenAI keep toppling brutal problems, they have done something no less improbable: They have turned me into a math person.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
And this show is really about seeing the rebellion of young teenage girls and how they are sort of key to the inside resistance of toppling this regime.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
In one of his first television interviews after taking power, Sharaa said he remembered Abu Omar when he entered Damascus victorious after toppling Assad in December 2024.
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
Once or twice she nodded, almost toppling into the water.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
