Definition of "topper"

Deal for network star Henry Morgan to sign a Majestic contract for two albums has fallen thru, with Paul Baron, newly-named artist and repertoire topper at the diskery, kiboshing a deal that virtually had been consummated between his predecessors and Music Corporation of America (MCA).

1947 September 6, “Paul Baron Nixes 2 Morgan Albums”, in Joseph G. Csida, editor, The Billboard: The World’s Foremost Amusement Weekly, volume 59, number 35, Cincinnati, Oh.: Roger S. Littleford Jr.; William D. Littleford, page 14, column 3

Chicken livers, of course, can also be gently fried, mashed in butter, and spread as a toast topper.

1999, John Yeoman, Self Reliance: A Recipe for the New Millennium, page 55

UK act the Prodigy will headline the Boiler Room, with chart toppers the Ting Tings playing at 2.15pm on the green stage.

2009 January 26, Cameron Adams, “Sniffer dogs have their Big Day Out”, in Herald Sun‎, archived from the original on 31 May 2009

This is another area in which it's hard to tell the dude from the twitcher, as ratting caps and deerstalkers, flying helmets and even toppers are considered acceptably eccentric.

1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 61

She was wearing her short pink topper and the small red hat that tilted over one eye so that she looked like a refugee starlet from the Gold Diggers film series.

a. 1969, John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces, Penguin, published 1981

Cooley currently is ironing out details of the proposed kinescoping with Klaus Landsberg, topper at KTLA, over whose facilities the hour-long show has been telecast […]

1953 August 29, Billboard, page 4

At first, in the pines, he had worked as a topper in his strong and boldest days, walking up the trees two hundred feet […]

1980, Barry Targan, Kingdoms, page 24

The only problem is that the best egg toppers, which are different from egg cutters, are an investment — the Inox professional egg topper is $55 at surlatable.com .

2007 October 14, Amanda Hesser, “2000: Le Bernardin’s Croque-Monsieur”, in New York Times‎

One man was faithful to his pipe, and kept / Despair and deeper misery at bay, / By seeking ever for a "topper," dropped / From some spurned pipe, but that he could not find; […]

1875, E. R. Billings, Tobacco (page 189)

It was a topper of a day for a Sale, although the heat would be hard on the beasts that had come a long way.

1957, Allan Campbell McLean, Storm Over Skye, page 194