top-line

1 of 2

adjective

ˈtäp-ˌlīn 

1

a

: most featured or prominently advertised : leading

… its oldest top-line act, the Rolling Stones, has long been taken as a symbol of the excesses of rock's nightmare side.

—Ethan Mordden

b

: of the highest quality, level, or degree : top-of-the-line

The lauded ladies received top-line Southern hospitality …

—Tim Allis

The new chips may well make moderately priced workhorse computers—the type many people buy—perform more like today's top-line models.

—Consumer Reports

2

business : relating to or concerned with gross sales or revenue

For real value creation, the merged company has to produce top-line growth and better margins through superior offerings to customers.

—Geoffrey Colvin

top line

2 of 2

noun

variants or less commonly topline

ˈtäp-ˌlīn 

plural top lines also toplines

1

business : the line at the top of a financial report that shows gross sales or revenue before the deduction of expenses or losses

The top line is weak, with a meager 0.3% sales gain last year, to $669 million, which doesn't even keep up with inflation.

—Jack Gage

When I first started writing about business, earnings stories focused on two numbers: sales (the top line on a company's income statement) and net income (the bottom line, after deducting all expenses including taxes).

—Kathleen Pender

compare bottom line sense 2a

2

usually topline : the outline of the top of the body of an animal (such as a dog or horse)

A long-legged, long-moving individual with long topline is considered the optimum type for the horse show.

—Linda Connors

Examples of top-line in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

The Speaker’s putative offense was reaching a top-line budget deal with the Democrats that was substantially the same as the one that McCarthy had agreed to a few months earlier (when Greene had defended him). —David D. Kirkpatrick, The New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2024

The company beat expectations on both the bottom and top-line, reporting $80.5 billion in revenue and $23.7 billion in net income. —Alan Murray, Fortune, 26 Apr. 2024

His restrictive covenants would block a buyer who couldn’t afford a large house or top-line construction. —Jeremy Lechtzin, New York Times, 19 Apr. 2024

Lake’s campaign effectively has less available money than her top-line numbers suggest. —Ronald J. Hansen, The Arizona Republic, 16 Apr. 2024

Only four members of the Panthers’ active roster — captain and top-line center Aleksander Barkov, top-pair defenseman Aaron Ekblad, goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and forward Eetu Luostarinen — were with the franchise before Zito took over. —Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 15 Apr. 2024

Today’s top-line lidar systems employ more than 100 semiconductor lasers whose inherently divergent beams are collimated using a complicated setup of lenses installed by hand. —Susumu Noda, IEEE Spectrum, 14 Apr. 2024

It’s stocked with equipment not offered in some competitors’ top-line trims. —James Raia, The Mercury News, 14 Apr. 2024

The top-line results are perhaps unsurprising, particularly given they are based on the thoughts of managers, who have traditionally been less sold on the idea of remote work compared with their subordinates. —Ryan Hogg, Fortune Europe, 5 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

Adjective

1880, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Noun

1869, in the meaning defined at sense 2