top story
1. Literally, a higher or the highest level of a building. The executives all have their offices in the top stories of the sky scraper. We converted the top story into a standalone apartment that we rent out.
2. The brain; one's ability to think, understand, and rationalize. He's attractive, all right, but I don't think there's much going on in the top story. I never felt like I had a strong enough of an top story to do a master's degree.
upper story
1. Literally, a higher or the highest level of a building. The executives all have their offices in the upper stories of the skyscraper. We converted the upper story into a standalone apartment that we rent out.
2. The brain; one's ability to think, understand, and rationalize. He's attractive, all right, but I don't think there's much going on in the upper story. I never felt like I had a strong enough of an upper story to do a master's degree.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
upper story
The head or brain, as in He's not all there in the upper story. This expression transfers the literal sense of a higher floor in a multistory building to the top portion of the human body. Richard Bentley used it in A Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris (1699), where he compares a man with "brains ... in his head" to a man who has "furniture in his upper story."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.