topple

From top +‎ -le (frequentative verb suffix).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɑpl̩/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɒpl̩/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒpəl
• Hyphenation: top‧ple

topple (third-person singular simple present topples, present participle toppling, simple past and past participle toppled)

1. (transitive) To push or throw over.

   The massed crowds toppled the statue of the former dictator.

2. To overturn.
3. (figurative) To overthrow something.

   to topple one's rival

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:

     Barla Von: Most people think I deal in finances, but my real currency is knowledge. I trade information and it has made me very wealthy.
     Barla Von: But the Shadow Broker is the true master. Every day, he buys and sells secrets that could topple governments, always giving them to the highest bidder.

   • 2023 May 24, Nicholas Nehamas, “Ron DeSantis Joins 2024 Race, Hoping to Topple Trump”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     He now confronts the daunting endeavor of toppling a former president whose belligerence and loyal base of support have discouraged most leading Republicans — including, up to now, Mr. DeSantis — from making frontal attacks against him.

4. (intransitive) To totter and fall, or to lean as if about to do so.

   The pile of pennies began to topple.

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XV, page 24:

     […] yonder cloud
     That rises upward always higher,
     ⁠And onward drags a labouring breast,
     ⁠And topples round the dreary west,
     A looming bastion fringed with fire.

topple (plural topples)

1. (informal) A fall (an instance of falling over).
2. A cascade of dominoes falling, such that each fall causes the next domino to topple.

• loppet