Meanings
- Something or someone who figuratively grows without control or intention.
Are you implying that it just grew—a Topsy?
1973, J Ryder, Trevayne5 more examples
They employ a symbolism which grew like Topsy and has little consistency […]
1945, Vannevar Bush, As We May ThinkThe town grows like Topsy after the railway age begins. The fortifications are now quite useless since the city has outgrown them.
1996, John H. Macdonald, The free world, page 25Topsy-like, the Encyclopédie just grew and grew.
2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 171The 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 […]
2006, Jock Lauterer, Community journalism: relentlessly localWhy has National Strategies been allowed to grow like Topsy in some respects, and at the same time become even more complex, making it difficult for teachers to take in the amount of guidance that they receive?
2009, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Children, Schools and Families Committee, National curriculum: Oral and written evidence (page 232)
Origin
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.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
Topsy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Topsy
“Topsy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Topsy. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Topsy,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Topsy.
Source: Topsy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.