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Does the expression head over heels mean the same as head over feet? To be madly in love with someone?

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The phrase is definitely head over heels - to be madly in love with someone typically used to describe a "new love" or "like a new love" condition.

I just met this girl and I'm head over heels in love.

or

She's lucky! They've been married for 20 years and he's still head over heels in love with her.

head over feet is never used this way. In fact as far as I know head over feet has no special idiomatic meaning and I can't come up with a situation where those three words would come out of my mouth in that order except for when reading this SE question outloud.

(As an aside- this is where Urban Dictionary and the like must be taken with a grain of salt because it does list head over feet to mean the same as head over heels, but no native speaker I know would ever utter it.)

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  • 3
    ...except Alanis Morissette?
    – itsadok
    Commented Mar 24, 2012 at 18:26
  • Family of related phrases at Maven's Word of the day: ass over teakettle randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19960517
    – Wayfaring Stranger
    Commented Mar 24, 2012 at 18:46
  • Yeah, well you never can tell with musicians and lyricists.
    – Jim
    Commented Mar 24, 2012 at 18:53
  • @itsadok thank you...i was worried nobody would think of it.
    – temporary_user_name
    Commented Mar 24, 2012 at 21:11
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    @JohnM.Landsberg That is simply not true. Head over feet is used, though it is much rarer than head over heels. As a quick Ngram search will show, head over feet started out around the 1930s or 1940s and has been rising in usage ever since—though obviously rising much more rapidly after being made famous by Alanis.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 21, 2014 at 11:01

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