Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Slang Eccentric; crazy.
- adj. Slang Ludicrously odd, unlikely, or inappropriate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Tortuous, like the thread or motion of a screw: as, a screwy motion.
- Exacting; close; stingy; mean; oppressive.
- Worn out; worthless.
Wiktionary
- adj. informal Crazy; silly; ridiculous; insane; demented; unreasonable.
- adj. archaic, informal Tipsy; slightly drunk.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not behaving normally
Etymologies
- 1820, original meaning “tipsy, slightly drunk;” meaning “crazy, ridiculous” first recorded 1887. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Besides that, he's a rookie who, according to Fox, irons the bill of his cap, and how screwy is that?”
“Things I Find Important: Just plain screwy skip to main | skip to sidebar”
“I don't know his theology and it sounds as if it might be kind of screwy, but one way or the other, he's a scholar and and a gentleman, a science fiction writer and a first-rate Christian apologist.”
“We hit that buoy -- I mean I thought we were all headed to Davy Jones 'locker right there and then they have this kind of screwy rule in sailboat racing where if you hit the buoy, you can go back and surround it three times.”
“It's kind of screwy to do that if it doesn't get people to the post but just gives them a little experience of exclusion.”
“It all sounds a little "screwy" to me too, but not just because the witness accounts sound as if the marshalls may have overreacted.”
“That's not all the time because I work kind of screwy hours, sometimes all night and then off the next day, so when I'm home at that time of day I listen, if I'm awake.”
“If phase 3, our present system, seems "screwy" to you, it should.”
“How do you scale all these categories out without some kind of screwy bias?”
“What kind of screwy system of justice do we have that 20 people see the guy kill and maim people and they need to conduct a criminal investigation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘screwy’.
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Russian Doll Words
A Russian Doll word is a word that, when you remove the first and last letters, is either the empty string, or a Russian Doll word. These are all of the 6 or more letter Russian Doll words found in...
waspiness, upraisers, strainers, sporangia, raspiness, prelatess, methanals, gaspiness, washings, uprisers, upraises, upraiser and 2373 more...
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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scraps
scray, scramble, scraggly, scrape, scree, scrap, scrape by, scratch, scratch out, scratch race, scratch up, scranny and 61 more...
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Mentally irregular
Words for the mentally irregular
bonkers, unhinged, batshit crazy, cognitive dissonance, apophenia, undone, loony, unsound, deranged, a bit off the beam, daft, stark ravin' mad and 65 more...
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Nightmare Alley
From the novel by William Lindsay Gresham
geek, mark, rubber, calliope, booze-fool, rummy, the horrors, the crawling snakes, equalizer, bubbies, grubstake, softshoe and 99 more...
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A Dram Too Many
notanotherjazzpoet had a very promising list which appears to have petered out. Yes, tosspots: descriptions of being drunk. Walk five metres on the white line then leave your suggestions right here.
drunk, guttered, pissed, baked, three sails in th..., smashed, paralytic, out of your tree, hammered, bombed, glazed, blotto and 336 more...
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loonie
Inspired by Peter Reading's "Euphemisms".
crackers, potty, loony, bonkers, nutty, screwy, ga-ga, dull, strange, do-lally, dopey, silly and 83 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for screwy.
yarb Citation on Queer Street. Jun 29, 2012