Meaning of topsy-turvy | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An act of turning something backwards or upside down, or the situation that something is in after this has happened.
   countable
2. A situation where the natural order of things has been upset.
   countable, figuratively
3. Chaos, confusion, disorder.
   figuratively, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Perhaps he was at a loss for the points of compass, as is often the case in tumbles and topsy-turvies.”

“[I ...] has seed a heap of scatterments and topsyturvies: here's hoping dat you all may swim⟳ smoofly along the briny waves of sacrificin' time, and ford the Jordan of destructive equinoxes, while fiery billows roll beneath!”

“The best-known examples of children’s nonsense language play⟳, and their ‘topsy turvies’, or inversion of reality, are in Chukovsky, who asserts that such topsy turvies ‘strengthen (not weaken) the child’s awareness of reality’ [...].”

“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, [...?]”

CEFR level