upside down

1. 1
   adverb

   In an inverted position, so that what was the top is now at the bottom.

   Someone had hung the painting upside down, and nobody at the gallery noticed for weeks.

   Turn the jar upside down for a minute to make sure the lid seals tightly.

   Oppositeupright

   Note

   The literal sense keeps the picture the phrase was built on. Middle English said up-so-doun, also upsedowne, roughly "up as down": what had been up now stood as down. Later so was altered to side, which makes the modern phrase look built from up, side and down, though no side figured in it at first. Flown upside down, the Union flag becomes a sign of danger.

2. 2
   adjective

   In an inverted position, turned so that its top is at the bottom.

   The sign by the entrance was upside down, so its arrow pointed at the ceiling.

   Her company logo is a simple upside down triangle inside a circle.

   Similarinverted, upturned

   Oppositeupright

3. 3
   adverb

   So as to leave things in great disorder, with everything confused and out of place.

   Detectives turned the apartment upside down but never found the missing ledger.

   Losing her job turned her carefully laid plans upside down overnight.

   Similartopsy-turvy

   Note

   As an adverb of disorder it pairs with turn: a thief turns a room upside down. The same words also describe literal inversion, and the object settles which is meant. A jar turned upside down is inverted, while a room turned upside down has been ransacked. Shakespeare already writes it in The First Part of Henry the Fourth (c. 1597): "This house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died."

4. 4
   adjective

   In a state of great disorder, so confused or untidy that nothing is where it belongs.

   With the renovation half finished, the office was upside down for most of the spring.

   Her world has been upside down since the diagnosis, and she is still finding her feet.

   Similartopsy-turvy, chaotic, disordered

   Oppositeorderly

   Note

   The adjective reports a mess already made, so it follows be where the adverb of disorder follows turn. Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr's The Lion's Whelp (1901) uses it of a household with everyone out on the streets all day: "the kitchen is upside down. You never saw the like."

5. 5
   owing too muchadjective

   Owing more money on something, such as a mortgaged home, than it is worth; having negative equity.

   When the housing market collapsed, thousands of homeowners found themselves upside down on their mortgages.

   Because he rolled his old loan into the new one, he was upside down on the truck the day he drove it home.

   Similarunderwater

   Note

   Finance usually applies it to the person who owes rather than to the property: he is upside down on his mortgage. It takes on, followed by the loan or by the thing the loan paid for. Selling does not end the problem, because the price falls short of the debt. The difference must still be paid off or rolled into a new loan.

6. 6
   dark mirror worldproper noun · Upside Down

   A dark, horrifying version of reality in which the usual rules are different.

   Nurses on the night shift joked that the ward had slipped into the Upside Down.

   The creature dragged its victims back into the Upside Down, where daylight never reached.

   Note

   It works as a place name, so it comes with the: in the Upside Down, into the Upside Down. Commentators apply it to real situations whose rules seem to have flipped. Greg Rosalsky on NPR in 2019 asked "Is Our Economy In The Upside Down?", and Tess Bissell wrote in 2023 of "teaching in the upside down." Capitals mark it as a name, though lowercase spellings appear as well.

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