all over the place
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
In a state of confusion.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Nails bit his tongue and slithered all over the place.
’ Its noisy and there's always loads of equipmenjt lying about all over the place, but it's great fun.’
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Euphemism (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “all over the place” mean?
In a state of confusion.
Is “all over the place” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“tùm lum” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.