Topless means wearing nothing above the waist. Sunbathe topless, a topless beach, topless bathing.
It is used almost entirely of women, which is the whole point of the word: a man with no shirt is simply shirtless, and no equivalent term exists. What is lawful varies enormously by country and even by beach, and it changed a great deal in the 1960s.
1adjectivetoplessWearing nothing above the waist.
“Some women sunbathe topless on the beaches in the south of France.”
topless is a state.
Proto-Germanic
*tuppaz — braid, pigtail, end
Proto-West Germanic
*topp
Old English
topp — top, highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything
Middle English
top
English
top
English, today
topless
From top + -less. top comes from Middle English top, toppe, from Old English topp (“top, highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything”), from Proto-West Germanic topp, from Proto-Germanic tuppaz (“braid, pigtail, end”), of unknown ultimate origin. Compare typologically apex (<< h₂ep- (“to join, attach, fasten, fit”)). Cognate with stq Top (“top”), cim sòpf (“braid”), Dutch top (“top, summit, peak”), German Topp (“top of a mast”), {{m|de|
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA