topsoil

From top +‎ soil.

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

topsoil (countable and uncountable, plural topsoils)

1. (agriculture, horticulture) The upper layer of soil, typically most fertile and in which it is the easiest to start new plants.

   Synonym: (East Anglia, obsolete) callow

   Little grew on the farm, after the floods from the hurricane washed away the topsoil.

   • 2013, Al Gore, “Outgrowth”, in The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 183:

     Without urgent action, the majority of the Earth’s topsoil could be severely degraded or lost before the end of this century. In China, topsoil is being lost fifty-seven times faster than this natural replacement process; in Europe seventeen times faster.

• garden soil

topsoil (third-person singular simple present topsoils, present participle topsoiling, simple past and past participle topsoiled)

1. (transitive) To remove the topsoil from.

• Pilotos, Politos, oil spot, poloist