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Onto vs Atop - What's the difference?

onto | atop |

As an adjective onto

is oily, greasy.

As a noun onto

is grease.

As a preposition atop is

on the top of.

As an adverb atop is

on, to, or at the top.

onto

English

Alternative forms

* on to

Preposition

(English prepositions)
  • Upon; on top of.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
  • (informal) Aware of.
  • (mathematics) Being an onto function with a codomain of (see below).

    • Adjective

    (-)
  • (mathematics, of a function) Assuming each of the values in its codomain; having its range equal to its codomain.
    • Considered as a function on the real numbers, the exponential function is not onto .

    Synonyms

    * (mathematics) surjective

    See also

    * (mathematics) one-to-one, injective, bijective

    Anagrams

    *

    atop

    English

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • On the top of.
    • He sat atop the mountain, waiting for the end of the world.
  • * 1966 , The Minnesota Review , vol. 6, page 242
    • A virtue is made out of a necessity, with the child feeling far more atop and master of his oddness, his behavior now deliberate or even clever.
  • * 2006 , Dewey Lambdin, The Gun Ketch , page 48
  • *:"And other things," she echoed, nodding slowly and resting her body a little more atop him again.
  • * 2014, (Paul Salopek), Blessed. Cursed. Claimed. , National Geographic (December 2014)[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text]
    • “Monotheism was born here,” Goren tells me atop a cliff overlooking the sheet of iron-colored water.
  • On the top, with "of".

    • Usage notes

    "Atop of" was formerly much more commonly used than now.

    Derived terms

    * thereatop

    Synonyms

    * on top * ontop (mainly US)

    Adverb

    (-)
  • On, to, or at the top.
  • * 1909 , William Dean Howells, Seven English Cities , Kessinger Publishing 2004, p. 46:
    • He has a handsome face, still bearded in the midst of a mostly clean-shaving nation, and with the white hairs prevalent on the cheeks and temples; his head is bald atop , though hardly from the uneasiness of wearing a crown.
  • * 1978 , James C. Humes, Speaker's Treasury of Anecdotes About the Famous , Harper & Row 1978, p. 102:
    • The envoy found the French king playing the part of horse while his young son rode atop .