The expression top dog is an idiomatic for the boss or the leader. In a competition, it is also the favorite or the one expected to win, and the opposite of the underdog. It may be a shorthand reference for a dominance hierarchy.
The name Top Dog may refer to:
- Top Dog (comics), a character from The Secret Life of Top Dog series by Star Comics (a Marvel Comics imprint)
- Top Dog (film), a 1995 action film with Chuck Norris
- Top Dog (rapper), member of the hip hop group O.G.C.
- Top Dog, another name for the card game Big Two
- Top Dawg Entertainment, independent record label
Famous quotes containing the words top and/or dog:
“No woman in my time will be Prime Minister or Chancellor or Foreign Secretary—not the top jobs. Anyway I wouldn’t want to be Prime Minister. You have to give yourself 100%.”
—Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925)
“That hour in the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)