# screwed

> English word · Adjective · frequency rank #7,176

## Definitions
1. Beset with unfortunate circumstances that seem difficult or impossible to overcome; in imminent danger.
2. Intoxicated.

## 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.

## Easily confused with
- **sewed** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screwed-vs-sewed)
- **skewed** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screwed-vs-skewed)
- **shrewd** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screwed-vs-shrewd)
- **stewed** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screwed-vs-stewed)
- **secreted** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screwed-vs-secreted)
- **screw** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screw-vs-screwed)
- **screen** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screen-vs-screwed)
- **screened** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/screened-vs-screwed)

## Common misspellings (11)
`csrewed`, `sccrewed`, `scerwed`, `screewd`, `screwde`, `screwedd`, `screwwed`, `scrrewed`, `scrweed`, `srcewed`, `sscrewed`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/screwed