English
screw
Screw comes from Middle English screw.
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English screw
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1690, John Dryden, Don Sebastian: “He screwed his face into a hardened smile.”.
Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500screwWiktionary, English screw
- Englishearliest quotation 1690screwWiktionary, English screw. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1690, John Dryden, Don Sebastian: “He screwed his face into a hardened smile.”
The story
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. Old French escroue (whence Medieval Latin scrofa (‘nut, screwhole’)), is believed to be an adaptation of Latin scrōfa (‘sow, female pig’); but this development is not found in other Romance languages. (For change in meaning, compare also Spanish puerca, Portuguese porca, both ‘sow; screw nut’, and is based on the fact that a boar's penis has a screw-like tip, making the sow's vulva equivalent to a screw nut by analogy). Old Dutch *scrūva possibly derives from Proto-Germanic *skrūbō (‘screw’), from *skru- (‘to cut’), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keru-, *(s)ker- (‘to cut’), and is related to German Schraube (‘screw’), Low German schruve, schruwe (‘screw’), Dutch schroef (‘screw’), West Frisian skroef (‘screw’), Danish skrue (‘screw’), Swedish skruv (‘screw, peg’), Icelandic skrúfa (‘screw’).
Every English word from Middle English screw
Today it means
noun A simple machine, a helical inclined plane.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “screw”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Middle English screw / screw