Word.ws English Dictionary

puts the screws

puts the screws is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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

Questions about puts the screws

What is puts the screws the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Puts the screws is the third-person singular simple present indicative of put the screws.

Words near puts the screws in the dictionary

  1. puts the pot on
  2. puts the question to
  3. puts the record straight
  4. puts the saddle on the right horse
  5. puts the screw
  6. puts the screws
  7. puts the squeeze on
  8. puts the stunners on
  9. puts the tin lid on it
  10. puts the toothpaste back in the tube
  11. puts the wood in the hole

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: puts the screws (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: “puts the screws.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/puts_the_screws. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.