The Origin of the Phrase "Over the Top"

Curiosity #1

Reposted from Substack Feb 13, 2025

I was listening to a WWI podcast1 last week on slang that originated in the trenches. While there were many interesting entries2, the one that stood out to me was over the top. This slang originated from going “over the top” of the trenches into the wasteland. According to the podcast, these barriers were usually marked with sandbags piled on top of one another. At the same time as over the top made its rounds, so did the phrase over the bag, which has not survived to modern day.

So why did over the top make it to 2025?

My hypothesis is that it is because, unlike many other idioms, different English-speaking countries developed different meanings for the phrase.

In the US, over the top means that something is too extreme or excessive. This is the definition I grew up with and is what I was thinking of when the podcasters started to talk about the subject.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, in the UK, over the top has another meaning. For the podcasters (who are both British), it seems that the first meaning of the idiom is “to charge forward into something unpleasant” just as the soldiers of WWI would have charged over the top of the trenches into the dangers of battle. I’d never heard this definition before.3

‘Over the Top’ by painter John Nash. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_Top_%28painting%29

According to Miriam Webster’s website4, the US meaning popped up in the mid-80s, whereas the origins of the UK meaning date back to 1915.

Perhaps the US idiom is an evolution of the original UK meaning, as the US idiom is usually applied in a negative sense of someone or something being “too much,” whereas the UK idiom is a warning to brace for something bad or uncomfortable. Both definitions evoke the same feeling, in a sense.

Isn’t etymology fascinating?!

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1 Episode 11: Trench Talk of Not So Quiet on the Western Front

2 Like undermining, originating from when Germans would literally mine under the men on the Allied side of the trenches and stormtrooper, from the German Sturmtruppen, meaning shock trooper

3 Shocking, as I attended university in the UK and lived with two British-English speakers for three years.

4 “Over-the-top.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/over-the-top. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.