put the screws on
put the screws on (idiomatic expression)
/ˌpʊt ðə ˈskruːz ɒn/
Meanings
- Apply strong pressure on someone to act.
- Force agreement by threats or tough demands.
- Make rules or control very strict.
- (Literal, old) Torture with thumbscrews.
Synonyms: pressure; coerce; force; push; compel; intimidate; tighten control.
Example Sentences
- The boss put the screws on the team to meet the deadline.
- The police put the screws on the suspect until he confessed.
- The government put the screws on companies with new taxes.
- Torturers once put the screws on prisoners to make them talk. (literal)
Origin and History
The phrase “put the screws on” comes directly from the long-standing metaphor of a screw as a means of pressure or coercion. English has used the screw(s) figuratively in this sense since at least the 1640s, clearly by reference to instruments that compress and hurt—hence the immediate leap to “applying pressure” on a person.
One vivid image behind the metaphor is the thumbscrew, a small torture device tightened by a screw to crush the thumb. In modern explanations the thumbscrew is explicitly described as a torture instrument, which shows why “the screws” quickly became shorthand for coercive force. Writers of the time often used stark descriptions, such as “they put the screws upon him until he yielded,” making the violent metaphor unmistakable.
Another strong line of influence is mechanical: tightening any screw, clamp, or press increases pressure. That everyday physical action gave the idiom an intuitive, non-torture route into figurative English—”tighten the screws” and “put the screws on” both picture pressure being ratcheted up. Contemporary descriptions state plainly, “As one tightens the screw, the strain grows more severe.”
A further well-attested 19th-century extension is financial. In British money-market talk, officials could “put on the screw” (raise rates, restrict credit) to squeeze borrowers. Parliamentary debates and contemporary newspapers use the phrase in exactly that sense, as in the quotation: “The Bank put on the screw, and commerce felt the weight.” This financial usage reinforced the broader coercive idiom already in circulation.
Country of First Appearance
The earliest known print examples of put the screws on (and very close variants) appear in the United States. The idiom surfaced in New York newspapers in the mid-1820s and was quickly taken up in popular American satirical works. Only afterwards does it appear in British periodicals and fiction. On the evidence, the phrase first arose in American English and spread to Britain within a decade.
Earliest Printed Record
The earliest printed use appears in the New-York National Advocate on March 15, 1825. The city notice uses the exact idiomatic structure “putting the … screws on” to mean applying official pressure:
“Streets—The inspector of the first ward [intends] to put the corporation screws on all occupants of stores who are in the habit of encumbering the side pavements in an unlawful or improper manner.” — New-York National Advocate, Mar. 15, 1825.
A closely following piece in the same paper titled “The Screws, No. 1” on June 21, 1826, includes:
“…what object have the owners of the old Advocate, in thus seeking every occasion to put the screws upon me?”
This confirms active idiomatic use in U.S. print by the mid-1820s. Soon after, the expression appears in the satirical collection The Letters of Major J. Downing (by Charles Augustus Davis, published 1835), where it reads:
“if they don’t they put the screws on ’em.” British print follows later, in works such as Paul Pry (1838) and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848): “He knew where he could put the screw upon George.”
Diffusion and Specialized 19th-Century Uses
By the 1850s the idiom had a recognized financial sense in Britain. Politicians and journalists wrote that the Bank of England had “put on the screw,” meaning it tightened credit. Hansard debates of 1856 and colonial press reports of 1857 spread this phrasing widely. Quotations such as “the directors put on the screw, and the market trembled” capture the exact sense of monetary coercion.
Assessment
The evidence shows that “put the screws on” emerges in early U.S. journalism in 1825, built on a much older English metaphor that treats a screw as an instrument of coercive pressure—imagery vividly colored by the notorious thumbscrew. The idiom then travels into British English and develops a prominent 19th-century financial application alongside its general meaning of “apply pressure; coerce.” Contemporary quotations make clear how the phrase was understood: “They put the screws on him until he complied,” “The bank put on the screw and trade collapsed,” and “He knew where to put the screw upon his rival.”
Variants
- put the screws to
- tighten the screws on
- screw down on
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