Word.ws English Dictionary

screw

UK/ˈskɹuː/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈskɹʉw/

screw noun: a simple machine, a helical inclined plane.

screw: a simple machine, a helical inclined plane
Image: Brianiac, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

screw (plural screws)

  1. A simple machine, a helical inclined plane.
  2. A (usually) metal fastener consisting of a partially or completely threaded shank, sometimes with a threaded point, and a head used to both hold the top material and to drive the screw either directly into a soft material or into a prepared hole.
  3. A ship's propeller.
    • It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC, page 01
  4. An Archimedes screw.
  5. A steam vessel propelled by a screw instead of wheels.
  6. The motion of screwing something; a turn or twist to one side.
  7. (derogatory, slang) A prison guard.
    • The screws moved her out of my cell because they could not stand the idea of a black and white white being together.1984 April 21, Albert Jones, “White Lovers”, in Gay Community News, page 4
    • And that's how it came to pass that on the second-to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate factory roof in the spring of forty-nine wound up sitting in a row at ten o'clock in the morning drinking icy cold, Bohemia-style beer, courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a...1994, Frank Darabont, The Shawshank Redemption (film)
  8. (derogatory, slang) An extortioner; a sharp bargainer; a skinflint.
    • This gentleman and the guard seemed to know Sir Pitt very well, and laughed at him a great deal. They both agreed in calling him an old screw; which means a very stingy, avaricious person.1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 8, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC
  9. (US, dated, slang) An instructor who examines with great or unnecessary severity; also, a searching or strict examination of a student by an instructor.
  10. (slang, vulgar) Sexual intercourse; the act of screwing.
    • Why can't I get just one screw? / Believe me, I'd know what to do / But something won't let me make love to you1983, Gordon Gano, “Add It Up”, in Violent Femmes, performed by Violent Femmes
    • “Not for God's sake, for Papá's sake. He's the one who gave Mami a good screw, and then you popped out. Or did you think you were a child of the Immaculate Conception, like the Baby Jesus?2001, Bárbara Mujica, Frida: A Novel of Frida Kahlo, Overlook Press, published 2012, →ISBN
  11. (slang, vulgar) A casual sexual partner.
    • If I don't go back to my boy friend he'll be as mad as hell. He's a sulky brute, but Christ, he's a good screw.1944, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 5, in The Razor’s Edge […], 1st American edition, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., →OCLC, section ii, page 211
    • "Swear it!" Kathleen screamed. "Let her know that she's just another screw. Because, darling, that's all you are. So go on, tell her!"1990, Susan Lewis, Stolen Beginnings, HarperPaperbacks, published 1992, →ISBN, page 122
  12. (archaic, slang) Salary, wages.
    • “I’ll speak to Mrs. Dorman when she comes back, and see if I can’t come to terms with her,” I said. “Perhaps she wants a rise in her screw. It will be all right. Let’s walk up to the church.”1887, Edith Nesbit, Man-Size in Marble
    • A certain amount of "screw" is as necessary for a man as for a billiard-ball.1888, Rudyard Kipling, In the Pride of His Youth
Show 6 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. Backspin.
  2. (dated) A twist of paper, especially one containing a small quantity of a material such as salt or tobacco.
    • Before potato crisps were sold pre-salted each packet would contain a screw of salt.
    • 3 Screws and a Pipe1847, Henry Mayhew, The Greatest Plague of Life
  3. (dated) An old, worn-out, unsound and worthless horse.
    • […] a gentleman of leisure, who enjoyed himself on a couple of spavined screws […]; both of them, as Stephen said, looked lonely without a gig behind them.1937, Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, London: Faber and Faber, page 155 (Faber Paper 1972 edition)
  4. A straight line in space with which a definite linear magnitude termed the pitch is associated. It is used to express the displacement of a rigid body, which may always be made to consist of a rotation about an axis combined with a translation parallel to that axis.
  5. An amphipod crustacean.
    • the skeleton screw (Caprella)
    • the sand screw
  6. (in plural, informal, with-definite-article) Rheumatism.
    • She didn't like my mother, so she made a wax doll and stuck thorns into its legs, and my mother had the screws (rheumatism) in her legs ever since.2000, Jacqueline Simpson, Stephen Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore

Verb

screw (third-person singular simple present screws, present participle screwing, simple past screwed, past participle screwed or (rare, nonstandard) screwn)

  1. (transitive) To connect or assemble pieces using a screw.
  2. (ambitransitive, slang, vulgar) To have sexual intercourse with.
    • Somebody told me [...] that she [...] acknowledged to him [...] that Nero [...] had screwed her (meaning had carnal intercourse with plaintiff) up stairs the night before.1890, Albert G. Porter, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature of the State of Indiana
    • He had contemplated Pym in all the stages he had grown up with him, drunk with him and worked with him, including a night in Berlin he had totally forgotten until now when they had ended up screwing a couple of army nurses in adjoining rooms.1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy
    Synonyms:
    fuck, root, shag, Formal terms, bed, coit, coitize, dight, enjoy, feague
  3. (slang, transitive) To cheat someone or ruin their chances in a game or other situation.
    Synonyms:
    fuck, screw over
  4. (transitive) To extort or practice extortion upon; to oppress by unreasonable or extortionate exactions; to put the screws on.
    • […] our country landlords, by unmeasurable screwing and racking their tenants, have already reduced the miserable people to a worse condition than the peasants in France, or the vassals in Germany and Poland […]1720, Jonathan Swift, A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture
    • It is not surprising that the landowner strove to screw his tenants.1884, Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages
  5. (transitive) To contort.
    • He screwed his face into a hardened smile.1690, John Dryden, Don Sebastian, act 2, scene 1
    • I had been calling Nobs in the meantime and was about to set out in search of him, fearing, to tell the truth, to do so lest I find him mangled and dead among the trees of the acacia grove, when he suddenly emerged from among the boles, his ears flattened, his tail between his legs and his body...1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter V, in The Land That Time Forgot
    Synonyms:
    twist, writhe
  6. (transitive) To miskick (a ball) by hitting it with the wrong part of the foot.
    • The visitors could have added an instant second, but Rooney screwed an ugly attempt high into Hennessey's arms after Berbatov cleverly found the unmarked England striker.2011 February 5, Chris Whyatt, “Wolverhampton 2 - 1 Man Utd”, in BBC
  7. To screw back.
  8. (US, dated, slang) To examine (a student) rigidly; to subject to a severe examination.
  9. (US, dated, imperative, intransitive, often, slang) To leave; to go away; to scram.
    • If you don't like it, fuckin' screw! It's Shit Ass Pet Fuckers. That's the way it's going to be.c. 2009, Louis CK, Shit Ass Pet Fuckers
  10. (colloquial, imperative, mildly, transitive, vulgar) Used to express great displeasure with, or contemptuous dismissal of, someone or something. To give up on, to abandon, delay, to not think about someone or something.
    • Screw those jerks, and screw their stupid rules!
    • Screw the homework for now.

screw meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

screw in Hindi

fastener
पेंच pẽc

screw in Tamil

fastener
திருகாணி tirukāṇi

screw in Urdu

برمہ, پیچ

screw in Bengali

screw, bolt
বল্টু bolṭu
screw
পেঁচ pẽc
More languagesFewer languages
screw in Telugu
స్క్రూ skrū, ఇస్క్రూ iskrū, ఇష్క్రూ iṣkrū, మర mara
screw in Malayalam
സ്ക്രൂ skrū
screw in Kannada
ಮರಸುತ್ತು, ಮಲಸುತ್ತು, ತಿರುಗಣೆ, ತಿರುಪು
screw in Gujarati
સ્ક્રૂ skrū
screw in Nepali
पेच pec
screw in Tagalog
balukay, tornilyo
screw in Arabic
لَوْلَب lawlab, بُرْغِيّ burḡiyy, قَلَاوُوظ qalāwūẓ
screw in Malay
pelitik
screw in Indonesian
sekrup, sipir
screw in Persian
پیچ pič
screw in Thai
ควง kuuang
screw in Vietnamese
vít
screw in Myanmar
ဝက်အူ wak-u
Dzongkha
གཅུས་གཟེར། gcus gzer

Examples of screw in a sentence

  • Screw him, let's run.
  • They were hurling abuse at the screws on the other side of the door.2000, Reginald Kray, A Way of Life:
  • A few couples would let selected doggers join in, with the lucky ones managing to get a screw.2007, Barry Calvert, Swingers 1, Matador, published 2007, →ISBN, page 85:
  • She was just a girl, like any of the girls he had had so easily, just another screw.1993, William Gill, Fortune's Child, HarperCollins Canada, published 1994, →ISBN, page 42:
  • Mary was Eli's favorite screw because she was clean, pretty, a good mother, funny, and alway was able to make herself available for their twice a week fucks as easily as he was.2009, Sam Moffie, The Book of Eli, Mill City Press, published 2009, →ISBN, page 6:

All 40 example sentences with screw

Synonyms of screw

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Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of screw

Forms of screw

Noun
pluralscrews
Verb
third-person singular presentscrews
present participlescrewing
pastscrewed
past participlescrewed
past participle (nonstandard, rare)screwn

Past tense of screw: screwed

Plural of screw: screws

Origin of screw

From Middle English screw, scrue (“screw”); apparently, despite the difference in meaning, from Old French escroue (“nut, cylindrical socket, screwhole”), from Latin scrōfa (“female pig”) through comparison with the corkscrew shape of a pig's penis. There is also the Old French escruve (“screw”), from Old Dutch *scrūva ("screw"; whence Middle Dutch schruyve (“screw”)), which probably influenced or conflated with the aforementioned, resulting in the Middle English word. more on the etymology of screw Old French escroue (whence Medieval Latin scrofa (“nut, screwhole”)), is believed to be an adaptation of Latin scrōfa (“sow, female pig”); but this development is not found in other Romance languages. (For change in meaning, compare also Spanish puerca, Portuguese porca, both ‘sow; screw nut’, and is based on the fact that a boar's penis has a screw-like tip, making the sow's vulva equivalent to a screw nut by analogy). Old Dutch *scrūva possibly derives from Proto-Germanic *skrūbō (“screw”), from *skru- (“to cut”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keru-, *(s)ker- (“to cut”), and is related to German Schraube (“screw”), Low German schruve, schruwe (“screw”), Dutch schroef (“screw”), West...

Words formed from screw

Phrases with screw

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Words that rhyme with screw

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about screw

What does screw mean?
Screw means a simple machine, a helical inclined plane.
What is screw in Hindi?
Screw in Hindi is पेंच (pẽc). See Screw meaning in Hindi.
How do you use screw in a sentence?
Screw him, let's run.
What part of speech is screw?
Screw can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce screw?
Screw is pronounced /ˈskɹuː/ (UK).
What is the plural of screw?
The plural of screw is screws.

Words near screw in the dictionary

  1. scrench
  2. screnches
  3. Screven
  4. Screven County
  5. Screveton
  6. screw
  7. screw about
  8. screw all
  9. screw anchor
  10. screw anchors
  11. screw around

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: screw (page history and authors); screw (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); পেঁচ (Bengali) (page history and authors); സ്ക്രൂ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); screw (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); पेच (Nepali) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-screw.ogg.

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