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Screwball vs Screwy - What's the difference?

screwball | screwy | Related terms |

Screwy is a related term of screwball.



As adjectives the difference between screwball and screwy

is that screwball is crazy, offbeat, bizarre, zany, or weird while screwy is crazy; silly; ridiculous; insane; demented; unreasonable.

As a noun screwball

is a pitch thrown with added pressure by the index finger and a twisting wrist motion resulting in a motion to the right when thrown by a right-handed pitcher.

screwball

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (baseball) A pitch thrown with added pressure by the index finger and a twisting wrist motion resulting in a motion to the right when thrown by a right-handed pitcher.
  • The screwball is not thrown much because it tends to damage pitcher's arms.
  • (US) One who behaves in a crazy manner.
  • I will not listen to this screwball any longer.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (originally US) Crazy, offbeat, bizarre, zany, or weird.
  • * 2013 , Tom Shone, Oscar nominations pull a surprise by showing some taste – but will it last?'' (in ''The Guardian , 11 January 2013)[http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/jan/11/oscar-nominations-surprise-taste]
  • Also a big hand for Silver Linings Playbook , an exuberant modern screwball comedy we had, in an unseemly fit of cynicism, deemed "too entertaining" for Academy voters.

    Derived terms

    * screwball comedy

    screwy

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • (informal) Crazy; silly; ridiculous; insane; demented; unreasonable.
  • That's a screwy idea; I am not going to fly all the way to Antarctica just to see a penguin!
  • (archaic, informal) Tipsy; slightly drunk.
  • Quotations

    * 1840 , Hal of the West. Brilliant run with the Puckeridge hounds. The Sporting Magazine. March, 1840. Vol XX, No 119. p383 *:" I saw my hearty out of the yard, with his pink peeping out of his Macintosh, on his screwy old black horse, and I heard from my fair waiter that he had been vaunting that he would lick us all into fits." * 1868 , Memorials of a theological college. London: Houlston & Wright. 1868. p9 *:"A tipsy man," said Spearman, "is generally noisy ; and I confess I was screwy on Wednesday." * 1877 , Edward Peacock, English Dialect Society. A glossary of words used in the wapentakes of Manley and Corringham. London: Trubner & Co. 1877. p120 *:"Screwy [skroo'i], adj. mean ; stingy ; parsimonious. Alto, slightly intoxicated."