Upper describes something positioned above or higher than something else. The upper floors of a building are the ones near the top, while the upper shelves in your closet are the ones you need to stretch or climb to reach. In a bunk bed, whoever sleeps in the upper bunk gets the top spot.

The word often appears in useful phrases. An upper hand means having an advantage or being in control of a situation: if you've practiced chess every day and your opponent just learned yesterday, you have the upper hand. The upper crust refers to wealthy, elite members of society, the way cream rises to the top of fresh milk.

In geography, upper can mean the part of something farther from where it meets the sea. The Upper Mississippi River flows through Minnesota and Wisconsin, far upstream from where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

As a noun, upper can refer to the top part of a shoe, the material that covers your foot above the sole.