Wiktionary
a. 1 (context US idiomatic English) best, or high quality 2 (context British idiomatic English) Describing books, magazines, or movies that have adult content, or soft-core porn.
Wikipedia
Top shelf may refer to:
- Top Shelf Productions, an American publishing company
- Top Shelf Radio, an Australian radio programme
- Topshelf Records, an American rock record label
- Top shelf magazine, meaning a pornographic magazine
- Top-shelf liquor, generally the most expensive brands of liquor served in a bar or nightclub
- Thee Top Shelf, a short-lived but popular barter-based "speakeasy" type bar located in Sacramento's Alahambra Triangle neighborhood between 2000 and 2004
- The upper section of netting on a hockey goal between the crossbar and the horizontal backbar which run parallel to one another from post to post
Usage examples of "top shelf".
The worse smell came from a transparent ovenware container on the top shelf.
He lifted Joan and Eleanor out of Nicole's pockets and placed them on the top shelf behind a can of peas.
Unable to reach the paper off the top shelf, she'd used the end of a broom to coax a roll to fall.
There was a tin wheel of Red Cross tape on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.
Madeline talked to her oldest daughter on the edge of the comforter while Charlie got the sewing box from the top shelf of the closet.
I stared at it for some time, then, placing the pad on the drawing board, I drew a shoebox down from the top shelf, where I had hidden it.
As I was about to turn away, something to the rear of that top shelf which held the hats glinted for a moment within my Logrus vision.
There was one entire trader's caravan which marched along a top shelf.
Mr Markey's lunch - a sub sandwich poking out of a brown paper bag - was on the top shelf.
He went to it, took a bottle of Glenfiddich from the top shelf and poured himself a drink.
The array of pots rather amazed her at first, but John was so fond of jelly, and the nice little jars would look so well on the top shelf, that Meg resolved to fill them all, and spend a long day picking, boiling, straining, and fussing over her jelly.
Getting up, I reached to the top shelf and brought down the big raw opal, its inner fire flickering through the carved spiral on its surface.