topsyturvy

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“
If she turned topsyturvy, and providing she was not cast upon the rocks and smashed, I would be in difficulty for fresh air in a very few hours These possibilities--and many others--passed through my mind in seconds of time.

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Definitions (4)

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  1. Upside down; in reverse of the natural order; hence, in a state of confusion or chaos: formerly sometimes followed by down. He tourneth all thynge topsy tervy. Roy and Barlow, Rede Me and Be Nott Wrothe (1528, [ed. Arber), p. 51. Now, beholde, all my enterprise bee quite pluckte backe, and my purposes tourned cleane topse-torve. Barnaby Rich, Farewell to Military Life (ed. 1846). p. 29. His trembling Tent all topsie turuie wheels. Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, ii., The Ark We shall o're-turne it topsie-turuy downe. Shak., 1 Hen. IV. (fol. 1623), iv. 1. Here the winds not only blow together, but they turn the whole body of the ocean topsy-turvy. Goldsmith, Hyperbole. An' warl'ly cares, an' warl'ly men, May a' gae tapsalteerie, O. Burns, Green Grow the Rashes.
  2. Turned upside down; upset; hence, confused; disordered; chaotic. Tush, man; in this topsy-turvy world friendship and bosom-kindness are but made covers for mischief, means to compass ill. Chapman, Widow's Tears, v. The topsy-turvy commonwealth of sleep. Hawthorne, Seven Gables, i.
  3. A topsyturvy condition; great disorder; confusion; chaos. Insane patients whose system, all out of joint, finds matter for screaming laughter in mere topsy-turvy. George Eliot, Theophrastus Such, x.
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Etymologies (4)

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  1. A word which, owing to its popular nature, its alliterative type, and to ignorance of its origin, leading to various perversions made to suggest some plausible origin, has undergone, besides the usual variations of spelling, extraordinary modifications of form. The typical forms, with their variations and earliest known dates, are as follows: (1) Topsy-tervy (1528), topsy-tyrvy (1530), topsie-turvie (1575), topse torve (1579), topsy turvye (1582), topsie turvy (1599), topsy turvy (1622), tupsie-turvie (1640), topsi-turvy (1670), topsy-turvey (1705). (2) Also, in Scots forms, with the terminal element capriciously altered, topsoltiria (1623), tapsalteerie (before 1796), tapsie-teerie (1808). (3) Also, with the first element reduced, top-turvye (1582). (4) With the second element omitted, topsey (1664). (5) With the elements transposed, turvy-topsy (before 1687); also, in various other forms simulating for the element following top- or topsy- some apparently plausible etymology—namely, (6) simulating side (see topside), topsyd-turvie (1582), topside-turvey (1594), topside-turvy (1713). (7) Simulating turn, topsyturny, spelled topsiturnie (1617), whence the verb topsyturn (1562), topsieturn (1606), topsiturn (1613). (8) Simulating both side and turn, topside-turned, adjective (1637). (9) Simulating set, topset-torvie (1558), topset-turvie (1569), topset tirvi (1573). (10) Deliberately expanded into a form impossible as an independent original, topside the other waie (1586), topside tother way (1656), topside turfway (see under topside). The earlier etymologies, indicated in the above forms, are a part of the history of the word, and are accordingly here formally stated, with the later explanations attempted, nearly in a chronological order: (a) As if from top + side (see topside) + -turvy (left unexplained). (b) As if orig. “the top side turned” (Minsheu, 1617), from top+ side + turn + -ed. (c) As if from top + -sy (left unexplained) + turn + -y. (d) As if from top + set + -turvy (left unexplained). (e) As if orig. top side the other way, topside tother way (so Grose, 1785; Trench, 1855; Wedgwood, 1872). Various other explanations, all absurd, are given by (f) Skinner (1671) and Bailey (1727), (g) Coles (1677), (h) Miege (1687), (i) Grose (1785), (j) Brewer (“Dict. of Phrase and Fable”). (k) According to Skeat's first supposition (“Etym. Dict.,”ed. 1882; “Concise Etym. Dict.,” ed. 1882), prob. orig. *topside turvy (as reflected in the form topsideturvy, above mentioned), i. e. ‘with the upper side (put) turfy,’ i. e. laid on the earth's surface, *turvy standing for turfy. Turfy, however, could not mean ‘put on the turf’ or ‘turned toward the turf.’ (l) According to Dr. F. Hall (in the “Nation,”March 28, 1889, from which article, and from Dr. Hall's book “On Adjectives in -able,” some of the above forms are taken), prob. orig. *top so turvy, *top so being parallel to up so in up so down (and *top so turvy being altered to topside-turvey, as up so down to upside down), and *turvy, *tervy, being connected with the obsolete verb terve, in comp. overterve, fall, transitive throw down, cast, as used in the “strange compound” toppe over terve: see terve. (m) A similar view is taken by Skeat (“Etym. Dict.,” Supp., 1884, p. 831; “Principles of English Etym.,” 1st ser., 1889, p. 428). That is to say, topsyturvy, starting from the earliest recorded form topsy-tervy (1528), is from top + so, adv., + tervy, overturned, from Middle English terven, throw, torvien, throw, from Anglo-Saxon torfian, throw: see terve, torve, and cf. turf. This view, assuming that -turvy, -tervy, is an accommodation form, made to agree terminally with topsy-, for *turved, *terved, past participle of Middle English terven, upset, is prob. correct. The eleven other explanations are certainly wrong. The phrase evidently originated in Middle English, and was prob, confused not only with the verb terve, toppe-overterve, but also with similar phrases, like topsails over, and, elliptically, topsail, upset (to which the peculiar forms topsoltiria, tapsalteerie are prob. in part due: see topsail), and top over tail (see under top).
  2. from topsyturvy, adv.
  3. from topsyturvy, adjective and v.
  4. Formerly also topsyturvey; from topsyturvy, adv. Cf. topsyturn.
 

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