What's the difference between screw and thumbscrew?

Screw


Definition:

  • (n.) A cylinder, or a cylindrical perforation, having a continuous rib, called the thread, winding round it spirally at a constant inclination, so as to leave a continuous spiral groove between one turn and the next, -- used chiefly for producing, when revolved, motion or pressure in the direction of its axis, by the sliding of the threads of the cylinder in the grooves between the threads of the perforation adapted to it, the former being distinguished as the external, or male screw, or, more usually the screw; the latter as the internal, or female screw, or, more usually, the nut.
  • (n.) Specifically, a kind of nail with a spiral thread and a head with a nick to receive the end of the screw-driver. Screws are much used to hold together pieces of wood or to fasten something; -- called also wood screws, and screw nails. See also Screw bolt, below.
  • (n.) Anything shaped or acting like a screw; esp., a form of wheel for propelling steam vessels. It is placed at the stern, and furnished with blades having helicoidal surfaces to act against the water in the manner of a screw. See Screw propeller, below.
  • (n.) A steam vesel propelled by a screw instead of wheels; a screw steamer; a propeller.
  • (n.) An extortioner; a sharp bargainer; a skinflint; a niggard.
  • (n.) An instructor who examines with great or unnecessary severity; also, a searching or strict examination of a student by an instructor.
  • (n.) A small packet of tobacco.
  • (n.) An unsound or worn-out horse, useful as a hack, and commonly of good appearance.
  • (n.) A straight line in space with which a definite linear magnitude termed the pitch is associated (cf. 5th Pitch, 10 (b)). It is used to express the displacement of a rigid body, which may always be made to consist of a rotation about an axis combined with a translation parallel to that axis.
  • (n.) An amphipod crustacean; as, the skeleton screw (Caprella). See Sand screw, under Sand.
  • (v. t.) To turn, as a screw; to apply a screw to; to press, fasten, or make firm, by means of a screw or screws; as, to screw a lock on a door; to screw a press.
  • (v. t.) To force; to squeeze; to press, as by screws.
  • (v. t.) Hence: To practice extortion upon; to oppress by unreasonable or extortionate exactions.
  • (v. t.) To twist; to distort; as, to screw his visage.
  • (v. t.) To examine rigidly, as a student; to subject to a severe examination.
  • (v. i.) To use violent mans in making exactions; to be oppressive or exacting.
  • (v. i.) To turn one's self uneasily with a twisting motion; as, he screws about in his chair.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Total excision and immediate reconstruction were done with alloplastic material fixated with microplates and screws.
  • (2) Two hundred and forty root canals of extracted single-rooted teeth were prepared to the same dimension, and Dentatus posts of equal size were cemented without screwing them into the dentine.
  • (3) The committee's findings include that the attacks were not extensively planned by the perpetrators; the intelligence community did a good job of warning about the risk of an attack but a bad job of summarizing the attack when it happened; the state department screwed up by not beefing up security at the mission; nobody blocked any military response; and that the Obama administration was slow to produce a paper trail but was generally not a sinister actor in the episode.
  • (4) The pedicle screw systems were always the most rigid.
  • (5) Closure is accomplished by suture of soft tissues and reattachment of the posterior trochanteric fragment with bone screws.
  • (6) Two of the 7 sets of iliosacral screws failed postoperatively (28%).
  • (7) An algorithm is implemented to determine the form and phase shift for inconsistent type II quadrupoles for any space group having glide or screw-axis translations which are not a consequence of lattice centering.
  • (8) It constitutes an alternative to Ender nailing, screw-plate, and nail-plate.
  • (9) Changes in radiostrontium clearance (SrC) and bone formation (tetracycline labeling) were observed in the femurs of skeletally mature dogs following the various operative steps involved in bone screw fixation.
  • (10) Several conventional internal fixation techniques and a three converging screw method were used.
  • (11) The criteria of failure of pedicular instrumentation or "death" of an implant were defined as 1) screw bending, 2) screw breakage, 3) infection, 4) loosening of implants, 5) any rod or plate hardware problems, or 6) removal of hardware due to a neurologic complication.
  • (12) Cadaver studies have been carried out and transpedicular screw position has been confirmed by computed tomography scan.
  • (13) In this study, we performed a series of in vitro tests to compare the breaking strength of plated bone analogues that used either unicortical or bicortical end screws.
  • (14) Successful treatment of scaphoid nonunions with screw fixation and cast-free after-treatment does not depend on the implant used but rather on careful case selection and precise surgical technique.
  • (15) The Herbert bone screw was initially developed for management of fractures of the carpal scaphoid.
  • (16) Plus, unlike planet-screwing fossil fuels, solar could actually be subsidy-free in a few years.
  • (17) The intensity-measuring device in both apparatuses has a mobile disk attached to a motionless axis by a spiral spring; the clamps have fixing screws in the butts of a spong.
  • (18) A variety of quality tests, of biomechanical screws, are used, before performing the operations, that flaws may be detected.
  • (19) Most fractures were fixed with interfragmentary screws and external fixators.
  • (20) To give variations in the peak flow-rate (from pulsatile to intermediate to non-pulsatile), three types of blood pump (piston-bellows, screw, and centrifugal) were applied to dogs.

Thumbscrew


Definition:

  • (n.) A screw having a flat-sided or knurled head, so that it may be turned by the thumb and forefinger.
  • (n.) An old instrument of torture for compressing the thumb by a screw; a thumbkin.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Defiantly, Gentileschi told him her thumbscrews were the wedding ring he’d promised.
  • (2) As had already been the case after the military coups in Brazil in 1964 and then in Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina, and as was to be the case latterly in modern Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, the military and police torturers were ready with their electrodes, thumbscrews and waterboarding equipment to defend "western Christian civilisation".
  • (3) The dispute has also dragged in JK Rowling and the best-selling American writer James Patterson, and broke into the open on Friday , when the world's largest bookseller started turning the thumbscrew on the French-owned publisher.
  • (4) A sliding beak-like marker, which can be anchored with a thumbscrew, is used to identify landmarks and to measure the amount of subluxation.
  • (5) But the fact that an unaccountable billionaire has been able to weaponize his wealth, in absolute secrecy, to game the American legal system using puppet claimants to turn thumbscrews on reporters and media companies – do so repeatedly, backing suit after suit: that is something which should terrify us all.

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