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turn upside down
turn someone or something upside down
1. Lit. to invert someone or something. The wrestler turned his opponent upside down and dropped him on his head. I turned the bottle upside down, trying to get the last drop out.
2. Fig. to upset someone or something; to thoroughly confuse someone or something. The whole business turned me upside down. It'll take days to recover.
turn something upside down
Fig. to throw things all about in a thorough search for someone or something. We turned this place upside down, looking for the lost ring. Please don't turn everything upside down, looking for your book.
turn something upside down
to change something completely turn something inside out His experience in the war turned his world upside down. The crash of the dot-com companies turned lives upside down.
Related vocabulary: turn something on its head turn upside down
Put in disorder, mix or mess up, as in He turned the whole house upside down looking for his checkbook. This metaphoric phrase transfers literally inverting something so that the upper part becomes the lower (or vice versa) to throwing into disorder or confusion. [First half of 1800s]