top drawer


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top drawer

n
people of the highest standing, esp socially (esp in the phrase out of the top drawer)
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

top′ drawer′


n.
the highest level in status, excellence, or importance.
[1900–05]
top′-drawer′, adj.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in classic literature ?
A bullet-hole, plugged, in the face of the top drawer, told of the fight with the Indians at Little Meadow.
All your letters I have left behind me in the top drawer of Thedora's chest of drawers.
The top drawer contained a complete collection of carpenter's tools in miniature, relics probably of the far-distant time when the Major was a boy, and when parents or friends had made him a present of a set of toy tools.
So she went upstairs to her room, and took a white handkerchief out of her top drawer; then she set the boy's head again on his shoulders, and bound it with the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and placed him on a chair by the door with an apple in his hand.
Jane" (he turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance), "take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck- handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble."
On going up to put away her best hat, Jo's first look was toward the bureau, for in their last quarrel Amy had soothed her feelings by turning Jo's top drawer upside down on the floor.
From the first minute of the training sessions Callum Hudson-Odoi has been top drawer. He fully deserved the start."
With 11 different-sized drawers--including a full-size top drawer with adjustable partitions--and a lockable side cabinet with adjustable shelf, the unit houses 19,000 cubic inches of storage space.
One insider said: "The menu is top drawer. On Thursday, there was fish, chicken, pasta, sweet potatoes...
I was watching him from my end of the pitch and his two penalties were top drawer."
He needs three top drawer players in various positions and then he's looking at another four or five players of really good quality to come into the squad as well.
We need to bring in seven players at least in, I'd say - of which three must be out of the top drawer.