screw

Origin: From , scrue; apparently, despite the difference in meaning, from , from through comparison with the corkscrew shape of a pig's penis. There is also the , from , which probably influenced or conflated with the aforementioned, resulting in the Middle English word. Old French escroue (whence ), is believed to be an adaptation of ; but this development is not found in other Romance languages. (For change in meaning, compare also , , 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 *. Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).