noun1. a device used for fastening materials together, consisting of a threaded and usually tapered shank that has a slotted head by which it may be rotated so as to cut its own thread as it bores through the material
2. Also called: screw-bolt a threaded cylindrical rod that engages with a similarly threaded cylindrical hole; bolt
3. a thread in a cylindrical hole corresponding with that on the bolt or screw with which it is designed to engage
4. anything resembling a screw in shape or spiral form
5. a twisting movement of or resembling that of a screw
6. Also called: screw-back billiards, snookera. a stroke in which the cue ball recoils or moves backward after striking the object ball, made by striking the cue ball below its centre
b. the motion resulting from this stroke
7. another name for propeller (sense 1)
9. British slang salary, wages, or earnings
10. British a small amount of salt, tobacco, etc, in a twist of paper
11. slang a person who is mean with money
12. slang an old, unsound, or worthless horse
13. (often plural) slang force or compulsion (esp in the phrase put the screws on)
14. vulgar, slang an act of sexual intercourse
15. have a screw loose
16. turn the screw
verb17. (transitive) to rotate (a screw or bolt) so as to drive it into or draw it out of a material
18. (transitive) to cut a screw thread in (a rod or hole) with a tap or die or on a lathe
19. to turn or cause to turn in the manner of a screw
20. (transitive) to attach or fasten with a screw or screws
21. (transitive) informal to take advantage of; cheat
22. (transitive; often foll by up) to distort or contort
he screwed his face into a scowl
23. Also: screw back to impart a screw to (a ball)
24. (tr, often foll by from or out of) to coerce or force out of; extort
25. vulgar, slang to have sexual intercourse (with)
26. (transitive) slang to burgle
27. have one's head screwed on
▶ USAGE The use of this otherwise utilitarian word in a sexual sense, though recorded in an18th century slang dictionary, does not appear to have really taken off until wellinto the 20th. Although a classic example of the anatomical metaphor for the sex actseen from the male point of view, it can be used with a woman as the subject, whichsuggests that the metaphor is all but deadWord origin
C15: from French
escroe, from Medieval Latin
scrōfa screw, from Latin: sow, presumably because the thread of the screw is like the spiralof the sow's tail