Word.ws English Dictionary

put the screw

put the screw is the alternative form of put the screws.

Meaning of put the screws

Verb

put the screws (third-person singular simple present puts the screws, present participle putting the screws, simple past and past participle put the screws)

  1. (idiomatic) To apply pressure and coercion.
    • If in fact […] they put the screws on Berlin in the way that Gromyko said they were going to, then we are... I know that we were bound to invade Cuba under those conditions.1962, John F. Kennedy, quoted in 2003 by Sheldon M. Stern in Averting 'the Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis meetings →ISBN

Forms of put the screw

third-person singular presentputs the screw
present participleputting the screw
past participleput the screw
pastput the screw

Questions about put the screw

What is put the screw the alternative form of?
Put the screw is the alternative form of put the screws.

Words near put the screw in the dictionary

  1. put the pot on
  2. put the question to
  3. put the record straight
  4. put the saddle on the right horse
  5. put the same shoe on every foot
  6. put the screw
  7. put the screws
  8. put the shits up someone
  9. put the shoe on the other foot
  10. put the squeeze on
  11. put the stunners on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put the screw (page history and authors); put the screws (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “put the screw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_the_screw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.