topsy-turvy
Backwards or upside down; also, having been overturned or upset.
If we without his helpe can make a head / To push against a kingdome, with his helpe / We shal oreturne it topsie turvy down, [...]
[A]s the Parson told us last Sunday, nobody believes in the Devil now-a-days; and here you bring about a Parcel of Puppets drest up like Lords and Ladies, only to turn the Heads of poor Country Wenches, and when their Heads are once turned topsy turvy, no wonder every thing else is so.
[...] Maggie [...] had stolen unperceived to her father's elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the chair— [...]
(figurative) Not in the natural order of things; in a disorderly manner; chaotically.
Backwards or upside down.
This argument, vaguely political in nature, took place as often as the two men met. It was a topsy-turvy affair, for the Englishman was bitterly anti-English and the Indian fanatically loyal.
(figurative) Chaotic; disorderly.
An act of turning something backwards or upside down, or the situation that something is in after this has happened.
(figurative) A situation where the natural order of things has been upset.
(figurative) Chaos, confusion, disorder.
Why should we [...] use it [our sense of the ludicrous] to degrade the healthy appetites and affections of our nature as they are seen to be degraded in insane patients whose system, all out of joint, finds matter for screaming laughter in mere topsy-turvy, [...?]
To turn topsy-turvy or upside down; to invert.
(figurative) To throw into chaos or disorder; to upset.
It is one among their many greater advantages from this surprisal of the enemy, and sudden topsy-turvying of his plans.
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