Other forms: screws, screwed, screwing
A screw is a threaded pin driven in by turning. A wood screw, tighten the screw, a loose screw.
The thread is an inclined plane wrapped round a cylinder, which is why a small turning force produces a large pushing one — it is one of the classical simple machines. A screw holds far better than a nail because the thread grips. Note screwdriver; put the screws on, meaning to apply pressure; and a screw loose, meaning slightly mad.
1nounscrewA threaded pin driven in by turning.
“The door handle was loose, so he tightened the screw that held it on.”
2verbfastenTo fasten with such a pin, or to turn.
“He screwed the shelf to the wall.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
screw is a fastener.
Old French escroue meant a nut or screwhole, from Latin scrofa, a sow — apparently from the resemblance of a pig's curly tail to a thread. The image is unlikely and well attested.
Middle English
scrue
English, today
screw
Built from
From Middle English scrue. 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. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA