foretop

From Middle English fore-top, for-top, equivalent to fore- +‎ top.

foretop (plural foretops)

1. (obsolete) The top of the head; the top of the forehead.
2. (obsolete) The lock of hair which grows on top of the forehead; the corresponding part of a wig.
3. (obsolete) In the phrase, to take time (or occasion or opportunity) by the foretop, meaning "to boldly seize an opportunity".
4. (obsolete) A fop; one who sports a foretop.
5. (UK dialectal) An erect tuft of hair.
6. The forelock of a horse.
7. (nautical) A platform at the top of the foremast, supported by the trestle trees.
   • 1903, Joseph Conrad, chapter 1, in Lord Jim:

     His station was in the fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with the contempt of a man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multitude of roofs cut in two by the brown tide of the stream, while scattered on the outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys rose perpendicular against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke like a volcano.

8. The front seat at the top of a horse-drawn vehicle.

• foretopman
• foretopmast

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “foretop”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

• poofter