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Twist vs Screw - What's the difference?

twist | screw |

In transitive terms the difference between twist and screw

is that twist is to coax while screw is to contort.

As nouns the difference between twist and screw

is that twist is a twisting force while screw is a device that has a helical function.

As verbs the difference between twist and screw

is that twist is to turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force while screw is to connect or assemble pieces using a screw.

twist

English

(wikipedia twist)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A twisting force.
  • Anything twisted, or the act of twisting.
  • * 1906 , (Edith Nesbit), (The Railway Children) Chapter 8
  • Peter was always proud afterwards when he remembered that, with the Bargee's furious fingers tightening on his ear, the Bargee's crimson countenance close to his own, the Bargee's hot breath on his neck, he had the courage to speak the truth.
    "I wasn't catching fish," said Peter.
    "That's not your fault, I'll be bound," said the man, giving Peter's ear a twist'—not a hard one—but still a ' twist .
  • * Addison
  • Not the least turn or twist in the fibres of any one animal which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture.
  • The form given in twisting.
  • * Arbuthnot
  • [He] shrunk at first sight of it; he found fault with the length, the thickness, and the twist .
  • The degree of stress or strain when twisted.
  • A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.ii:
  • the thrid / By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine, / That cruell Atropos eftsoones vndid, / With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine [...].
  • A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc.
  • * 2005 , Theodore J. Albasini, The Progeny
  • Bunny sat on the only remaining stool at the leather-padded oval bar in the Iron Lounge. It was happy hour, two drinks for the price of one. She decided on a martini with a twist , and while the bartender was preparing her drink, she scanned the faces looking at the bar.
  • A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc.
  • * 1899 , Edith Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods
  • But here a twist in the stream brought us out from the bushes
  • * , chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • A distortion to the meaning of a word or passage.
  • An unexpected turn in a story, tale, etc.
  • * {{quote-news, 1987, October 23, Caryn James, Movie Review: No Man's Land (1987), New York Times
  • , passage=Though set in Los Angeles, the film has a familiar, television look and feel - two handsome partners, cops, criminals, fast cars and a marginal romance. The twist in the buddy-car-chase formula is that here the good guys tend to blur into the bad.}}
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 24, author=Nathan Rabin, work=The Onion AV Club
  • , title= Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3 , passage=In the abstract, Stuhlbarg’s twinkly-eyed sidekick suggests Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 by way of late-period Robin Williams with an alien twist , but Stuhlbarg makes a character that easily could have come across as precious into a surprisingly palatable, even charming man.}}
  • A type of dance characterised by rotating one’s hips. See
  • * {{quote-news, 1997, April 22, Jennifer Dunning, Surviving It All, Dismissals, Tours and Balanchine, New York Times
  • , passage=She taught him to do the twist , having learned it herself from an Alvin Ailey dancer at Jacob's Pillow. }}
  • A rotation of the body when diving.
  • A sprain, especially to the ankle.
  • (obsolete) A twig.
  • (Chaucer)
    (Fairfax)
  • (slang) A girl, a woman.
  • * 1990 , (w, Miller's Crossing), 01:08:20
  • (Dane, speaking about a woman character) "I'll see where the twist flops"
  • (obsolete) A roll of twisted dough, baked.
  • A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together.
  • The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.
  • (obsolete, slang) A beverage made of brandy and gin.
  • Descendants

    * German: (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force.
  • To join together by twining one part around another.
  • * 1900 , , (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) Chapter 15
  • "Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted , so that I couldn't come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country."
  • To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Twist it into a serpentine form.
  • To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
  • * Waller
  • longing to twist bays with that ivy
  • * T. Burnet
  • There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
  • (reflexive) To wind into; to insinuate.
  • Avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
  • To turn a knob etc.
  • To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.
  • * Exodus 23:8
  • And you will not take a bribe, because a bribe will blind the alert, and will twist the words of the righteous.
  • To form a twist (in any of the above noun meanings).
  • To injure (a body part) by bending it in the wrong direction.
  • * 1913 , (George Bernard Shaw), Act V
  • Oh, you are a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her. Mrs. Pearce warned me. Time and again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the last minute. And you don't care a bit for her. And you don't care a bit for me.
  • * 1901 , (Henry Lawson), Joe Wilson's Courtship
  • Then Romany went down, then we fell together, and the chaps separated us. I got another knock-down blow in, and was beginning to enjoy the novelty of it, when Romany staggered and limped.
    ‘I’ve done,’ he said. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ He’d caught his heel against a tuft of grass.
  • (of a path) To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.
  • * , chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • * 1926 , , He
  • My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration in the teeming labyrinths of ancient streets that twist endlessly from forgotten courts and squares and waterfronts to courts and squares and waterfronts equally forgotten, and in the Cyclopean modern towers and pinnacles that rise blackly Babylonian under waning moons, I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me.
  • To cause to rotate.
  • * 1911 , (John Masefield), Jim Davis Chapter 8
  • The tide seized us and swept us along, and in the races where this happened there were sucking whirlpools, strong enough to twist us round.
  • To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
  • To coax.
  • * 1932 , Robert E. Howard, Dark Shanghai
  • "On the three-thousand-dollar reward John Bain is offerin' for the return of his sister," said Ace. "Now listen--I know a certain big Chinee had her kidnapped outa her 'rickshaw out at the edge of the city one evenin'. He's been keepin' her prisoner in his house, waitin' a chance to send her up-country to some bandit friends of his'n; then they'll be in position to twist a big ransome outa John Bain, see? [...]"
  • (card games) In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.
  • Antonyms

    : stick; stay

    Derived terms

    (terms derived from the noun and verb "twist") * French twist * get one's knickers in a twist * intertwist * nontwist * overtwist * plot twist * retwist * round the twist * supertwist * twist and turn * twist around * twist drill * twist grip * twist in the wind * twist of fate * twist off * twist someone's arm * twist someone's balls * twist up * twistable * twister * twistfree * twistical * twistwood * twisty * undertwist * untwist

    Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs ----

    screw

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A device that has a helical function.
  • # A simple machine, a helical inclined plane.
  • # A (usually) metal fastener consisting of a shank partially or completely threaded shank, sometimes with a threaded point, and a head used to both hold the top material and to drive the screw either directly into a soft material or into a prepared hole.
  • # (lb) A ship's propeller.
  • #*
  • It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.
  • # An Archimedes screw.
  • # A steam vessel propelled by a screw instead of wheels.
  • (lb) A role.
  • # A prison guard.
  • # An extortioner; a sharp bargainer; a skinflint.
  • (Thackeray)
  • # An instructor who examines with great or unnecessary severity; also, a searching or strict examination of a student by an instructor.
  • To do with coitus.
  • # Sexual intercourse; the act of screwing.
  • #* 2001 , Bárbara Mujica, Frida: A Novel of Frida Kahlo , Overlook Press (2012), ISBN 9781468300994, unnumbered page:
  • “Not for God's sake, for Papá's sake. He's the one who gave Mami a good screw , and then you popped out. Or did you think you were a child of the Immaculate Conception, like the Baby Jesus?
  • #* 2007 , Barry Calvert, Swingers 1 , Matador (2007), ISBN 9781905886647, page 85:
  • A few couples would let selected doggers join in, with the lucky ones managing to get a screw .
  • #* 2009 , Kimberly Kaye Terry, The Sweet Spot , Aphrodisia Books (2009), ISBN 9780758228765, page 28:
  • As she sucked the nicotine deeply into her lungs, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the headboard, enjoying the pleasurable buzz that the combination of a good screw'—well, a decent ' screw —coupled with the nicotine gave.
  • # A casual sexual partner.
  • #* 1944 , W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge , Vintage International (2003), ISBN 9780307785084, unnumbered page:
  • #*:“If I don't go back to my boy friend he'll be as mad as hell. He's a sulky brute, but Christ, he's a good screw .”
  • #* 1990 , Susan Lewis, Stolen Beginnings , HarperPaperbacks (1992), ISBN 9780061004414, page 122:
  • #*:"Swear it!" Kathleen screamed. "Let her know that she's just another screw . Because, darling, that's all you are. So go on, tell her!"
  • #* 1993 , William Gill, Fortune's Child , HarperCollins Canada (1994), ISBN 9780061091551, page 42:
  • She was just a girl, like any of the girls he had had so easily, just another screw .
  • #* 2009 , Sam Moffie, The Book of Eli , Mill City Press (2009), ISBN 9781936107353, page 6:
  • Mary was Eli's favorite screw because she was clean, pretty, a good mother, funny, and alway was able to make herself available for their twice a week fucks as easily as he was.
  • (lb) Salary, wages.
  • * 1888 , (Rudyard Kipling),
  • A certain amount of "screw " is as necessary for a man as for a billiard-ball.
  • (lb) Backspin.
  • (lb) A small packet of tobacco.
  • (Mayhew)
  • An unsound or worn-out horse, useful as a hack, and commonly of good appearance.
  • (lb) A straight line in space with which a definite linear magnitude termed the pitch is associated. It is used to express the displacement of a rigid body, which may always be made to consist of a rotation about an axis combined with a translation parallel to that axis.
  • An amphipod crustacean.
  • A prison guard.
  • Synonyms

    * (casual sexual partner) see also .

    Derived terms

    * Archimedes screw * capstan screw * hex head screw * machine screw * screw anchor * screwdriver * screw thread, screw-thread * screw drive * self-tapping screw * set screw * sheet-metal screw * turnscrew * wood screw

    See also

    *

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To connect or assemble pieces using a screw.
  • (transitive, vulgar, slang) To have sexual intercourse with.
  • (slang) To cheat someone or ruin their chances in a game or other situation. Sometimes used in the form "screw over".
  • To apply pressure on; to put the screws on.
  • To practice extortion upon; to oppress by unreasonable or extortionate exactions.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • 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.
  • To contort.
  • * Dryden
  • He screwed his face into a hardened smile.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter V
  • I had been calling Nobs in the meantime and was about to set out in search of him, fearing, to tell the truth, to do so lest I find him mangled and dead among the trees of the acacia grove, when he suddenly emerged from among the boles, his ears flattened, his tail between his legs and his body screwed into a suppliant S. He was unharmed except for minor bruises; but he was the most chastened dog I have ever seen.
  • (soccer) To miskick (a ball) by hitting it with the wrong part of the foot.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=February 5 , author=Chris Whyatt , title=Wolverhampton 2 - 1 Man Utd , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The visitors could have added an instant second, but Rooney screwed an ugly attempt high into Hennessey's arms after Berbatov cleverly found the unmarked England striker.}}
  • (billiard, snooker, pool) To screw back.
  • (US, slang, dated) To examine (a student) rigidly; to subject to a severe examination.
  • Synonyms

    * (2) * fuck (taboo slang) (2, 3) * (Australia) root (2) * (British) shag (2)

    Antonyms

    * unscrew

    Derived terms

    * screw over * * screw in * screw it * screw up * screw with * screwball * screwtape, screwtaping * screwy

    Anagrams

    * crews

    References