topsy-turvy

Meanings

Adverb

• Backwards or upside down; also, having been overturned or upset.
• Not in the natural order of things; in a disorderly manner; chaotically.

Adjective

• Backwards or upside down.
• Chaotic; disorderly.

Noun

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

Verb

• To turn topsy-turvy or upside down; to invert.
• To throw into chaos or disorder; to upset.

Origin

• , with turve inherited from Middle English terven, perhaps from Old English *tierfan (compare Old English tearflian) or from Old English torfian, from Proto-Germanic *turbōną, *turbijaną (whence Old English ġetyrfian), from Proto-Indo-European *derbʰ-. Thus, the term as a whole may literally mean “having the top side thrown or turned down”.
• The noun and verb are probably derived from the adverb and adjective.