topsy-turvy

Backwards or upside down; also, having been overturned or upset.

Thou toyl'ſt in perrill, and the vvindie ſtorme, / Doth topſide-turuey toſſe thee as thou floteſt.

If we without his helpe can make a head / To puſh againſt a kingdome, with his helpe / We ſhal oreturne it topsie turuy down, [...]

Not in the natural order of things; in a disorderly manner; chaotically.

Diuilliſh it is to deſtroy a cittie, but more then diuilliſhe, to euert citties, to betraye countreies, to cause ſeruaunts to kyll their maiſters, parentes theyr children, children their parentes, wiues their huſbandes, and to turne all things topſy turuy, and yet it doth ſo, as ſhalbe declared.

Backwards or upside down.

If I travel Aunt, I touch at your Antipodes—your Antipodes are a good raſcally ſort of topſy turvy Fellows—If I had a Bumper I'd ſtand upon my Head and drink a Health to ’em— [...]

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.

Chaotic; disorderly.

[John] Chrysostom saith, An Oath came in when Evils increased, when men appeared unfaithful, when all things became Topsy Turvy.

You have not kept her comfortable-easy. Something has turned her poor little mind topsy-turvies.

An act of turning something backwards or upside down, or the situation that something is in after this has happened.

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

A situation where the natural order of things has been upset.

[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’ [...].

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, [...?]