The Enterprise and Economic Development Glossary

a resource of the .network library

putting the screws to:

... an expression as an idiom meaning to fowl-up someone or an effort to the extent that things are botched or become a mess so as to frustrate, shut down, block, or stop further progress. As a non-literal phrase, putting the screws to someone means fastening movement as implied by the preceding definition in that same way that one might use screws to affix something. After putting the screws to someone, that person may see what has happened in terms of another idiom, thinking that he or she has been had. In other words, the end result happens and the person is screwed so that he or she is deprived of continuing further with some activity or activities.

See the definition of the be had idiom provided by Your Dictionary.com which defines putting the screws on as an expression similar to the turning up the heat on idiom. To define putting the screws to in a different way here than is meant by turing up the heat it has more of a quality or condition of conclusiveness, completion, or finality.

definition of putting the screws to / definition of putting the screws on

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