top to bottom
21
3.2
- idiom
:
de arriba abajo
- All the furniture was given away, and the room was redone from top to bottom.
Everything from top to bottom was amazing.
- Everything from top to bottom was amazing.
- So this thing from beginning to end, top to bottom, just stinks of being unfair.
- But it's it's a truly democratic process from top to bottom.
- And he he wants to reinvent everything, the entire system, top to bottom.
- So we recently moved out of our old house, which we renovated top to bottom.
- I've had it from top to bottom, left to right, up to my eyeballs with Thanksgiving.
- It is a failure from top to bottom, left to right, and the mainstreaming of stupidity.
Examples
-
I said, 'Be patient, we'll search the house from top to bottom, and hopefully we'll find it.'
Fiction book (1993) -
Actually, it's all a group, so it goes from top to bottom, from left to right.
-
Everything from top to bottom was amazing.
-
Search the whole place top to bottom.
-
We'll check her out top to bottom.
-
Search this room from top to bottom, and let me know the minute you find anybody.
-
This place would be sparkling from top to bottom.
-
This has got to be a complete overhaul, kids, from top to bottom.
-
We'll be forced to reorganize the Navy from top to bottom overnight.
Fiction book (1997) -
We need to clean the house thoroughly, so we will start from the top to bottom.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Totally, in every way
∞
1.0
To be complete with nothing left out
∞
1.0
Completely, with nothing left out
131
1.7
Completely, with nothing missing
84
3.4
Completely in every way
33
3.5
Completely and in every detail
Antonyms
How Thorough
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'in every part; completely or thoroughly' is directly derivable from combining 'top' (highest part) + 'to' (indicating range) + 'bottom' (lowest part): it denotes coverage across the entire vertical extent. This spatial-to-extent compositional pattern is common across languages and follows a standard English construction, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Top to bottom comes from the simple picture of moving from the top of something down to the bottom, so you check or work on every part. That's why it now means 'completely' or 'thoroughly'.