Chapter TOPAZ to TOPE of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Portuguese marrying natives, called topasses because they wear hats.”—Carraccioli’s Clive, iv. 564. The same explanation in Orme, i. 80.

1787.—“…Assuredly the mixture of Moormen, Rajahpoots, Gentoos, and Malabars in the same corps is extremely beneficial.…I have also recommended the corps of Topasses or descendants of Europeans, who retain the characteristic qualities of their progenitors.”—Col. Fullarton’s View of English Interests in India, 222.

1789.—“Topasses are the sons of Europeans and black women, or low Portuguese, who are trained to arms.”—Munro, Narr. 321.

1817.—“Topasses, or persons whom we may denominate Indo-Portuguese, either the mixed produce of Portuguese and Indian parents, or converts to the Portuguese, from the Indian, faith.”—J. Mill, Hist. iii. 19.

TOPE, s. This word is used in three quite distinct senses, from distinct origins.

a. Hind. top, ‘a cannon.’ This is Turkish top, adopted into Persian and Hindustani. We cannot trace it further. [Mr. Platts regards T. tob, top, as meaning originally ‘a round mass,’ from Skt. stupa, for which see below.]

b. A grove or orchard, and in Upper India especially a mango-orchard. The word is in universal use by the English, but is quite unknown to the natives of Upper India. It is in fact Tam. toppu, Tel. topu, [which the Madras Gloss. derives from Tam. togu, ‘to collect,’] and must have been carried to Bengal by foreigners at an early period of European traffic. But Wilson is curiously mistaken in supposing it to be in common use in Hindustan by natives. The word used by them is bagh.

c. An ancient Buddhist monument in the form of a solid dome. The word top is in local use in the N.W. Punjab, where ancient monuments of this kind occur, and appears to come from Skt. stupa through the Pali or Prakrit thupo. According to Sir H. Elliot (i. 505), Stupa in Icelandic signifies ‘a Tower.’ We cannot find it in Cleasby. The word was first introduced to European knowledge by Mr. Elphinstone in his account of the Tope of Manikyala in the Rawul Pindi district.

a.—

[1687.—“Tope.” See under TOPEKHANA.

[1884.—“The big gun near the Central Museum of Lahor called the Zam-Zamah or Bhanjianvati top, seems to have held much the same place with the Sikhs as the Malik-i-Maidán held in Bijapur.”—Bombay Gazetteer, xxiii. 642.]

b.—

1673.—“…flourish pleasant Tops of Plantains, Cocoes, Guiavas.”—Fryer, 40.

„ “The Country is Sandy; yet plentiful in Provisions; in all places, Tops of Trees.”—Ibid. 41.

1747.—“The Topes and Walks of Trees in and about the Bounds will furnish them with firewood to burn, and Clay for Bricks is almost everywhere.”—Report of a Council of War at Ft. St. David, in Consns. of May 5, MS. in India Office.

1754.—“A multitude of People set to the work finished in a few days an entrenchment, with a stout mud wall, at a place called Facquire’s Tope, or the grove of the Facquire.”—Orme, i. 273.

1799.—“Upon looking at the Tope as I came in just now, it appeared to me; that when you get possession of the bank of the Nullah, you have the Tope as a matter of course.”—Wellington, Desp. i. 23.

1809.—“…behind that a rich country, covered with rice fields and topes.”—Ld. Valentia, i. 557.

1814.—“It is a general practice when a plantation of mango trees is made, to dig a well on one side of it. The well and the tope are married, a ceremony at which all the village attends, and large sums are often expended.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 56.

c.—

[1839.—“Tope is an expression used for a mound or barrow as far west as Peshawer.…”—Elphinstone, Caubul, 2nd ed. i. 108.]