Screwdriver

How to spell screwdriver

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce screwdriver

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does screwdriver mean?

1. nounA hand tool with a shaped tip used to turn screws into or out of a surface.
2. nounA mixed drink made from vodka and orange juice.

Screwdriver in a sentence

• He reached for a screwdriver to tighten the loose hinge.

• She ordered a screwdriver at brunch, vodka with plenty of orange juice.

• The flat-pack wardrobe came with a small screwdriver in the box.

• The bartender shook up a screwdriver using fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Where does screwdriver come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Screwdriver is a transparent English compound, joining 'screw' with 'driver', the thing that drives the screw home. The 'screw' element travelled into Middle English from the Old French 'escroue', meaning a nut or the female part of a screw, which most scholars trace back to the Latin 'scrofa', literally a breeding sow, apparently a coarse comparison for the spiral thread. 'Driver' is the agent form of the native Old English verb 'drifan', meaning to push, force, or propel something forward, the same root behind 'drive' a car or 'drive' cattle. The tool name was assembled in English and is recorded from the early 1800s, once standardised screws became common in manufacturing. The cocktail sense, vodka mixed with orange juice, is a twentieth century Americanism, said to come from oil workers who stirred the drink with the nearest tool to hand. The spelling is mercifully regular: it simply stacks two familiar words, so the only trap is remembering the doubled 'r' inside 'driver'.

How the word is built

• screw (the fastener)
• drive (to turn or propel)
• -er (agent suffix: a thing that drives)