Topless describes a woman wearing nothing on the upper half of her body, so her breasts are uncovered. It is used both as an adjective and as an adverb: 'a topless woman', 'she sunbathed topless'. The commonest situations are beaches in Europe, where topless sunbathing is ordinary and legal in many places, and the adult entertainment business — a topless bar, a topless dancer — where the word does most of its work and where it can sound seedy. Because of that second use, the word carries a whiff of the adult world even when the situation is completely innocent, so choose it carefully. Two things worth knowing. First, the word is almost only used about women; if a man takes his shirt off, English says 'bare-chested', 'shirtless' or 'with no shirt on', not 'topless'. That asymmetry is in the language, not in the bodies. Second, topless has an entirely separate and safe use for objects that simply have no top or lid: 'a topless jar', 'a topless car' (though for cars people usually say 'convertible' or 'open-top'). If a Taiwanese student meets the word, it will almost always be in news about European beaches or in film ratings.