screwed
"screwed" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“screwed” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,176 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #7,176
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 8
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Beset with unfortunate circumstances that seem difficult or impossible to overcome; in imminent danger.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | screwed |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #7,176 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “screwed” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for screwed is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective. Corpus data places it at rank #7,176 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for screwed, with forms such as "csrewed", "sccrewed", and "scerwed". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 8 confusable-pair relationships, "sewed", "skewed", "shrewd", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From screw + -ed. * The modern sense of screwed originates in the mid-1600s with a sense of to screw as a means of "exerting pressure or coercion", probably in reference to instruments of torture (e.g. thumbscrews). It quickly gained a wider general sense o… The correct English form is screwed, spelled S-C-R-E-W-E-D.
Definition
- 1Beset with unfortunate circumstances that seem difficult or impossible to overcome; in imminent danger.
- 2Intoxicated.
Etymology
From screw + -ed. * The modern sense of screwed originates in the mid-1600s with a sense of to screw as a means of "exerting pressure or coercion", probably in reference to instruments of torture (e.g. thumbscrews). It quickly gained a wider general sense of "in a bind; in unfortunate inescapable circumstances". When the verb screw gained a sexual connotation in the early 1700s, it joined the long-lasting association of sexual imagery as a metaphor for domination, leading to screwed gaining synonyms like fucked and shagged. On a more general note, this is a prime example of the frequent tendency for verb participles to evolve into participial adjectives. * The sense meaning "intoxicated" is from the early 1800s, and is associated with the term screwy, and the idiom to have a screw loose.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: csrewed,sccrewed,scerwed,screewd,screwde,screwedd,screwwed,scrrewed,scrweed,srcewed,sscrewed
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of screwed - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “screwed”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-C-R-E-W-E-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “sewed” - see the side-by-side comparison. screwed vs sewed
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.