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The Collaborative International Dictionary
toper

Tope \Tope\, n.

  1. (Zo["o]l.) A small shark or dogfish ( Galeorhinus galeus syn. Galeus galeus), native of Europe, but found also on the coasts of California and Tasmania; -- called also toper, oil shark, miller's dog, and penny dog.

  2. (Zo["o]l.) The wren. [Prov. Eng.]

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
toper

"heavy drinker," 1670s, agent noun from tope (v.).

Wiktionary
toper

n. (context now literary English) Someone who drinks a lot; a drunkard.

WordNet
toper

n. a person who drinks alcoholic beverages (especially to excess) [syn: drinker, imbiber, juicer] [ant: abstainer]

Usage examples of "toper".

Immediately his respect for Mok, at least as a toper, increased enormously.

He had before laughed at the stare of bewildered disappointment of the astonished toper, and the subdued humor of Master Prout, hardly concealed by his austere exterior, but he felt no disposition to censure the severity of the regulation.

They were bulldoggers, the boots favored by rodeo topers because the heels angled forward to give better traction when taking down a roped calf.

It was a potation, indeed, that might well make the heart of a toper leap within him, being composed of the richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples bobbing about the surface.

The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously.

Bob Coggan was sent home for his ill manners, and tranquility was restored by Jacob Smallbury, who volunteered a ballad as inclusive and interminable as that with which the worthy toper old Silenus amused on a similar occasion the swains Chromis and Mnasylus, and other jolly dogs of his day.

The very children armed themselves, and there were even little urchins cuirassed and accoutred, running between the legs of the topers like large beetles.