screw

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small metal pin with a spiral thread, turned to fasten things together.

   He tightened the last screw on the shelf.

2. 2
   verb

   To fasten or attach something using screws or a twisting motion.

   Screw the lid back on the jar tightly.

3. 3
   noun

   A guard in a prison.

   The screws moved him to another cell.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Screw may come from Latin scrofa, “sow,” later also “female screw” or “nut,” or from Latin scroba, “a dug hole”; the two words may have influenced one another. The slang sexual sense dates from the early 18th century and probably gave rise in the mid-20th century to screw up, “make a mess of.”

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 adap…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary