top

Tacked onto a number to describe a table's size. A four-top seats four, a six-top seats six. The whole restaurant communicates seating this way: 'seat the four-top in section 3', 'we've got a ten-top coming at 8'. Bigger tops mean bigger checks and bigger headaches for the kitchen.

In kink, the Top is the one running the action — the partner who applies the sensation, the restraint, the impact. It's a physical role, not necessarily a psychological one: you can Top without being dominant. Plenty of Tops are technicians doing the doing while someone else calls the shots. Can also be a verb — to top someone.

Loosely used outside dedicated kink circles to mean the more 'active' or penetrative partner in sex. Related but not identical to the kink sense, which is about who's administering a scene rather than mechanics.