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topsy-turvy
ADVERB
upside down:
"the fairground ride turned riders topsy-turvy"
synonyms:
upside down · inverted · reversed · wrong side up · head over heels · upset · backwards · vice versa
ADJECTIVE
placed upside down:
"the bookmark showed a topsy-turvy flag"
NOUN
a state of utter confusion:
"this economic topsy-turvy has been set in motion by employee ownership of public companies"
More definitions and word origin
Topsy-turvy
Other
Reduplicated phrases
What's the meaning of the phrase 'Topsy-turvy'?
'Topsy-turvy' means in disorder; with the top where the bottom should be.


 
What's the origin of the phrase 'Topsy-turvy'?
The meaning and origin of the phrase 'Topsy-turvy'.'Topsy-turvy', as with similar phrases like 'upside-down', refers to the top and bottom being interchanged from their usual places. 'Topsy' is clearly an allusion to 'top'.

'Turvy' isn't so easy to interpret. The numerous variant spellings in early citations, which include tervy, tirvy, turvy, turvie etc., don't offer much in the way of a clue as to the meaning of the word. It may be an adaptation of the medieval verb 'tirve', meaning 'to turn or to topple over'. It has also been suggested that 'turvy' is an allusion to 'turf' and that 'topsy-turvy' means 'with one's head on the turf'. That's possible, but none of the early citations of the phrase make any such allusion.

The phrase appears to be a variant of the older expression 'top-over-terve', which meant 'topple-over'. This is first recorded in The Brut, or The chronicles of England, 1450:

Our stakez made hem top ouyr terve

The term has been recorded since at least the 16th century, for example, this piece from Richard Eden's The Decades of the Newe Worlde, 1555:

"They say that... they see the houses turne topsy turuye, and men to walke with theyr heeles vpwarde."


Turvy-topsy
Mike Leigh chose Topsy-Turvy as the title of his 1999 film about the Victorian lyricist William Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan. The film explores the rapid reversal in the pair's fortunes after they produced The Mikado and alludes to the topsy-turvy worlds they created in their operettas.

Rather neatly, the film's publicity poster works either way up, with the two reversed images resembling the lead characters

topsy-turvy
 
adjective, adverb
 
/topsi;t;;vi/
 
upside down; in confusion
drunter und dr;ber
Everything was turned topsy-turvy.
(Translation of topsy-turvy from the PASSWORD English–German Dictionary © 2014 K Dictionaries Ltd)

EXAMPLES of topsy-turvy
topsy-turvy
None of these revisions would have been possible had the insurance market continued to spiral in the topsy-turvy fashion of the 1850s.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
I am not arguing for a topsy-turvy, unlimited, uninhibited advance of freedom of trade.
From the Hansard archive
This topsy-turvy world is yours if you want it.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We have experienced the same crazy, topsy-turvy situation before.
From the Hansard archive
A more topsy-turvy method of dealing with social reform was never dreamt of.
From the Hansard archive
The whole of this discussion is getting topsy-turvy.
From the Hansard archive
Surely many other schemes of the same sort for generating power may be turned completely topsy-turvy when the use of atomic energy is fully developed.
From the Hansard archive
You are going to have a topsy-turvy administration, with no coherence.
From the Hansard archive

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Translation of topsy-turvy – English-German dictionary
 
topsy-turvy
 
adjective, adverb
 
/topsi;t;;vi/
 
upside down; in confusion
drunter und drujeer
Everything was turned topsy-turvy.