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Screwing   /skrˈuɪŋ/   Listen
noun
Screwing  n.  A. & n. from Screw, v. t.
Screwing machine. See Screw machine, under Screw.



verb
Screw  v. t.  (past & past part. screwed; pres. part. screwing)  
1.
To turn, as a screw; to apply a screw to; to press, fasten, or make firm, by means of a screw or screws; as, to screw a lock on a door; to screw a press.
2.
To force; to squeeze; to press, as by screws. "But screw your courage to the sticking place, And we'll not fail."
3.
Hence: To practice extortion upon; to oppress by unreasonable or extortionate exactions. "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."
4.
To twist; to distort; as, to screw his visage. "He screwed his face into a hardened smile."
5.
To examine rigidly, as a student; to subject to a severe examination. (Cant, American Colleges)
To screw out, to press out; to extort.
To screw up,
(a)
to force; to bring by violent pressure.
(b)
to damage by unskillful effort; to bungle; to botch; to mess up; as, he screwed up the contract negotiations, and we lost the deal.
(c)
(intrans.) to fail by unskillful effort, usually causing unpleasant consequences.
To screw in, to force in by turning or twisting. Screw around,
(a)
to act aimlessly or unproductively.
(b)
to commit adultery; to be sexually promiscuous. Screw around with, to operate or make changes on (a machine or device) without expert knowledge; to fiddle with. (Colloq.). >



Screw  v. i.  
1.
To use violent means in making exactions; to be oppressive or exacting.
2.
To turn one's self uneasily with a twisting motion; as, he screws about in his chair.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Screwing" Quotes from Famous Books



... times at least. Not in assent—in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips, the while, with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; I am clear of that), and looking the good Carrier through and through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the meantime, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... week she scudded with the gray seas tumbling after her, white-topped, out of the snow and spume. The waves ranged high above her taffrail, curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching the vessel screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let her fall off or claw up, the next wave would have made an end of her. He was knee-deep half the time in icy brine, and his hands had split and opened with the frost, but the ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... that nothing could be done, and waited for the morning before she sent for Considine or the doctor. In the afternoon when Gabrielle and Considine visited him Jocelyn was almost good-humoured, laughing sardonically and screwing up one of his bird-like eyes while, from the other, tears escaped. He passed from laughter to tears quite easily. It was very horrible to see one side of his childish grey-whiskered face puckered up with crying and the other limp and blank. He finished by making ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... sir," said Bones thoughtfully, and screwing his face into all manner of contortions in his effort to secure the right answer, "I should go and wet my heated brow in the purling brook, then ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... "Young man," said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old fashion, "you air a going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you ask me, where you air a going? I say to you, Sir, you ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens


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