Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Higgledy-piggledy \Hig`gle*dy-pig"gle*dy\, adv.
In confusion; topsy-turvy. [Colloq.]
--Johnson.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"confusedly, hurriedly," 1590s, a "vocal gesture" [OED] probably formed from pig and the animal's suggestions of mess and disorder. Reduplications in the h-/p- pattern are common (as in hanky-panky, hocus-pocus, hinch(y)-pinch(y), an obsolete children's game, attested from c.1600).\n
\nEdward Moor, "Suffolk Words and Phrases" (London, 1823), quotes a list of reduplications from Ray's "Collection of English Words" (1768), all said to "signify any confusion or mixture;" the list has higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, hodge-podge, mingle-mangle, arsy-versy, kim-kam, hub-bub, crawly-mauly, and hab-nab. "To which he might have added," Moor writes, crincum-crankum, crinkle-crankle, flim-flam, fiddle-faddle, gibble-gabble, harum-scarum, helter-skelter, hiccup-suickup, hocus-pocus, hotch-potch, hugger-mugger, hum-drum, hum-strum, hurry-scurry, jibber-jabber, prittle-prattle, shilly-shally, tittle-tattle, and topsy-turvy. Many of them seem to date to the 16th century.
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 a. In utter disorder or confusion; mixed up. adv. In a confused, disordered, or random way. n. A disordered jumble; a confusion. Etymology 2
n. 1 A double-dactyl; a short poem with eight lines in dactylic meter. 2 Any of various word games using rhyming compounds or dactylic words or phrases.
WordNet
adj. in utter disorder; "a disorderly pile of clothes" [syn: disorderly, hugger-mugger, jumbled, topsy-turvy]
adv. in a disordered manner; "they were piled up higgledy-piggledy" [syn: topsy-turvy]
Usage examples of "higgledy-piggledy".
Stacks of cordwood and piles of burnable slash ran higgledy-piggledy up the slope.
It contained a big stack of logs, and higgledy-piggledy heaps of what seemed to be scrap iron, wheels, buckets, metal sheeting, wire, mounded almost to the tops of the walls.
Swords, daggers, crossbows and bolts, harquebuses, lances, arrows, maces were mixed higgledy-piggledy with more modern guns, rifles, blackjacks, grenades, and rocket launchers.
Jammed higgledy-piggledy into cartons and tumbling from raw industrial shelving in flagrant disobedience to the Dewey Decimal system, they nonetheless exuded their familiar allure, a mixture of physical attractiveness and numinous potential.
Tin alleys wandered higgledy-piggledy with no plan except to squeeze another space for another family of refugees and illegal aliens but not really aliens for this was China and, once past the border, any Chinese became legal settlers to stay as long as they wanted by ancient Hong Kong Government approval.
Therefore you must not, in every case at least take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.
Erin built herself a Sand Bar-that is, a sand castle in the spitting image of Mary's Place-which struck several tourists dumb: as tall as she was, quite lifelike, and flanked by half a dozen little Sand Cars parked higgledy-piggledy.
They went down into the old township, into the higgledy-piggledy lanes, where the stalls of the witchdoctors stood side by side with those offering food and trade cloth and used clothes and stolen radios.