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Top-heavy   /tɑp-hˈɛvi/   Listen
Top-heavy

adjective
1.
Unstable by being overloaded at the top.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Top-heavy" Quotes from Famous Books



... in which to fare forth to London, or Cadiz, or the Windward Islands—some of them not much larger and far less seaworthy than the lifeboat which hangs at a liner's davits. Pinching poverty forced him to dispense with the ornate, top-heavy cabins and forecastles of the foreign merchantmen, while invention, bred of necessity, molded finer lines and less clumsy models to weather the risks of a stormy coast and channels beset with shoals and ledges. The square-rig did well enough for deepwater voyages, but it was an awkward, lubberly ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... passed out of modern sport; but I remember mine with regret, and think I shall some day buy another. I still find that the best double-barrel seems top-heavy in comparison; in poising it the barrels have a tendency to droop. Guns, of course, are built to balance and lie level in the hand, so as to almost aim themselves as they come to the shoulder; and those ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... Justice, where the law courts sit. It cost nearly L2,000,000 to build, and is much bigger than anything in London. It stands on an eminence overlooking the lower part of the town, and is so huge that it may almost be said to make the capital of this tiny kingdom look top-heavy. ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond

... complain that the tiers of windows are wider than the gable, that there is a disproportion between the little arcade in the lowest stage of the towers and the great lancets in the upper stages, that the height of the latter makes the towers appear top-heavy, that the whole facade lacks projection and depth of shade, and that there is too much glass. Some dissatisfaction was felt, as the Fabric Rolls indicate, in 1379, when masons were employed to divide each of the large windows into two lights with a quatrefoil above.[36] ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... every variety of form, and almost every size. They sometimes resemble castles, sometimes churches with glittering spires, and sometimes the peaked and jagged mountains of Norway. They are also frequently seen in the form of immense misshapen and top-heavy masses. ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... almost a miracle that the top-heavy sled did not upset. Had the course been less smooth and even, it must have done so at ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... was, however, one exception, which would have proved extremely inconvenient, and that was her size; for as they could not make her quite forty tun burthen, she would have been incapable of containing half the crew below the deck, and must have been so top-heavy, that if they were all at the same time on deck, there would be no small hazard of her oversetting; but this was a difficulty not to be removed, as they could not augment her beyond the size already proposed. After the manner of rigging and fitting up the bark was considered and regulated, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... avoided; and to-day the throne room is a dusky spot, rather below the general level of the place. Its chief treasure is the throne itself, a stone chair, carved in rather rudimentary ornamentation, and about the size of an ordinary chair. The roof is supported by the curious, top-heavy-looking stone pillars, that are known to have prevailed not only in the Minoan but in Mycenaean period; monoliths noticeably larger at the top than at the bottom, reversing the usual form of stone pillar with which later ages have made us more familiar. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various



Words linked to "Top-heavy" :   unstable



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