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Word of the Day Archive
Sunday July 6, 2003

toper \TOH-puhr\, noun:
One who drinks frequently or to excess.

Although he was no toper, God forbid, he took a glass of aquavit . . . .
-- Isaac Bashevis Singer, Reaches of Heaven

But there remains a core of bottom-line voters to whom the promise of tax cuts is as seductive as gin to a toper.
-- David Nyhan, "Tax cuts for all - wheee!", Boston Globe, January 21, 2000

You may walk around a bar with a big mug of beer . . . , but if you sloshed it all over a fellow toper, you'd pay the cleaning bill.
-- Randy Cohen, "At Random: Everyday Ethics", Chicago Tribune, June 10, 2003

Toper is formed from the verb tope, "to drink," originally an interjection used in proposing a toast, from French tope!, "agreed!" from toper, "to cover a stake in playing at dice, to accept an offer, to agree."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for toper

 

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