topsy

Not valid in Scrabble

It's a recognised English word, but it isn't in the official NASPA Scrabble word list.

Scrabble points
10
Words With Friends
10
Letters
5
Pronunciation
/ˈtɒpsi/(UK)

Definition of topsy

1 sense · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. Something or someone who figuratively grows without control or intention.
    “They employ a symbolism which grew like Topsy and has little consistency […]”
    “Are you implying that it just grew—a Topsy?”
    “The town grows like Topsy after the railway age begins. The fortifications are now quite useless since the city has outgrown them.”
    “Topsy-like, the Encyclopédie just grew and grew.”
    “The paper grew like Topsy. Within two years, we rented the place next door, knocked a door through the brick wall, redid the front to look like a real newspaper office instead of a bunch of fly-by-nighters […]”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

After a character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), who, asked about God, says "I s'pect I growed. Don't think nobody never made me." The sense of excessive out-of-control growth is a misunderstanding.

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