'top' fails: 'xterm-256color': unknown terminal type

[Stuart McGraw]

When I try to run 'top' on the Fedora 21 system I am
installing I get the error:
   'xterm-256color': unknown terminal type

'TERM=xterm top' also fails:
   'xterm': unknown terminal type.

and fails the same way no matter what the terminal type is
set to.  I don't have a TERMIFO_DIRS env variable set nor
a ~/.terminfo/ directory.  Same thing also happens when I
login as a newly  created user.

/usr/share/terminfo looks normal and all the files and
directories therein are world-readable.

After reading a lot of manpages I came across 'toe' which
according to 'man toe'
   "lists all available terminal types by primary name
   with descriptions."
In my case, 'toe' lists nothing.  However, 'toe -as'
   "-a: report  on  all  of  the  terminal databases which
   ncurses would search, rather than only the first one
   that it finds"
says,
   --> /etc/terminfo
   ----> /usr/share/terminfo
   --*-: Eterm           Eterm with xterm-style color...
   --*-: Eterm-256color  Eterm with xterm 256-colors
   --*-: Eterm-88color   Eterm with 88 colors
   --*-: ansi            ansi/pc-term compatible with...
   --*-: aterm           AfterStep terminal
  and continues with list of everything in /usr/share/-
  terminfo/.  I don't know what the "--*-" text means.

I tried replacing /etc/terminfo with a symlink to
/usr/share/terminfo but that made no difference.

Anyone have a clue about what is going on here?