Screwball

Definition: Screwball

Screwball

Adjective

1. (informal) foolish; totally unsound; "an impractical solution"; "a crazy scheme"; "half-baked ideas"; "a screwball proposal without a prayer of working".

Noun

1. A whimsically eccentric person.

2. A pitch with reverse spin that curves toward the side of the plate from which it was thrown.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "screwball" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1939. (references)

Synonyms: Screwball

Crosswords: Screwball

Screwball Squirrel (1944)

The Screwball (1943)

Screwball Football (1939)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Books

• Hollywood Bedlam: Classic Screwball Comedies (reference)

• Romantic Vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference (Studies in Film Genres) (reference)

• Screwball (reference)

• The Screwball Comedy Films: A History and Filmography, 1934-1942 (reference)

• The Screwball King Murder (reference)

  (more book examples)

Theater & Movies

• Tex Avery's Screwball Classics (reference)

  (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

They was a screwball.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Albanian

i krisur (balmy, bonkers, cracked, crackers, cuckoo, Daffy, dare devil, daring, desperate, devil may care, flaky, hard on, loon, loony, madcap, nut, nuts, pixilated, potty, wacky), çyryk, çmendimë. (various references)

Arabic 

‏أحمق (ass, barmy, berk, bonkers, brutish, childish, chuckle-head, chump, cuckoo, daft, empty, empty headed, fantastic, fat, fathead, fatuous, foolish, footless, goofy, goon, haywire, idiotic, impolitic, imprudent, indiscreet, inept, injudicious, insensate, jerk, lemon, mad, meaningless, nit, nitwit, nonsensical, numskull, ornery, oyster, perverse, pointless, prat, senseless, sod, stupid, unwise, vacant, wacky, weak, weak-minded, whacky, witless, wood-headed, zany). (various references)

Bulgarian 

смахнат човек (loon, nut, wittol, zany), чешит (codger, quiz), ексцентричен човек. (various references)

Farsi 

ادم عجیب غریب , ادم بوالهوس , ابله (Asinine, Blister, Dolt, Doodle, Doter, Fool, Imbecile, Mome, Silly, Simpleton). (various references)

French

hurluberlu (scatter-brained, scatty), dingue (screwed up), cinglé (screwy). (various references)

German

Spinner (crank, madcaps, nut, nutcase, oddball, screwballUS, silkmoth, silkworm moth, spinner). (various references)

Hungarian

fantaszta (dreamer, fantast), dilis (balmy, batty, be off his rocker, bonkers, buggy, crazy, dorky, foolish, nutter, nutty, potty, psycho, queer, queer in the head, rummy, to be cracked, to be up the pole, up the pole, wacko, woody). (various references)

Italian

svitato (nutty, screwy, unhinged), testa matta (madcap), mezzo matto, mattoide (spinner). (various references)

Japanese Kanji 

スクリュープロペラ船 (scraper, screw, screw ship, scroll, skate, skateboard, skater, skating, skating rink, squat, sucrose). (various references)

Japanese Katakana 

スクリューボール . (various references)

Pig Latin

ewballscray.(various references)

Russian 

сумасброд (crackpot, madcap, madman, screw-ball). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

ekscentrik (eccentric, screw-ball). (various references)

Spanish

excéntrico (crackpot, eccentric, eccentrical, kinky, nut, oddball, oddbod, offbeat, original), estrafalario (bizarre, eccentric, extravagant, fancy, incongruous, odd, outlandish, sloppy, slovenly, tacky, wack, wild, zany). (various references)

Swedish

knasboll (dimwit, nut, wet), galning (loon, loony, lunatic, madman, madwoman, maniac, tomfool). (various references)

Turkish

tuhaf tip (case, curio, curiosity, fruitcake, odd fellow, odd fish, oddity, weirdo), tuhaf (antic, bizarre, comical, cranky, curious, droll, erratic, flaky, funnily, funny, funny peculiar, laughable, odd, offbeat, peculiar, peregrine, queer, quizzical, rum, rummy, screwy, singular, splay, strange, twee, unaccustomed, uncouth, unusual, weird, whimsical), havaya kavis yapan top, garip (awkward, bizarre, codger, comical, cranky, crotchety, curious, droll, eccentric, exotic, fanciful, fancy, fantastic, fantastical, far out, freak, freakish, funny, funny peculiar, grotesque, kinky, odd, out of the way, outlandish, poor, queer, quizzical, rum, rummy, screwy, strange, weirdo, whimsical), acayip (antic, bizarre, bughouse, comical, comically, crotchety, curious, droll, exotic, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, flaky, freak, freakish, grotesque, incongruous, kinky, kooky, novel, odd, out of the way, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, quirky, quizzical, rum, rummy, singular, some, splendiferous, strange, uncanny, unco, unusual, weird). (various references)

Ukrainian

навіженість, навіжений (addle, balmy, barmy, extravagant, nut, nuts, nutty, wild, wildcat), ексцентричність (eccentricity, oddness). (various references)

Derivations

Words beginning with "screwball": screwballs. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

-1 letter: becrawls.

-2 letters: ballers, bawlers, becrawl, callers, cellars, clawers, recalls, scleral, warbles.

-3 letters: balers, baller, bawler, blares, blears, braces, brawls, cabers, cables, caller, carles, cellar, clawer, clears, crawls, labels, lacers, recall, scaler, sclera, scrawl, walers, warble, warsle.

-4 letters: abler, ables, acerb, acres, alecs, arles, baler, bales, balls, bares, baser, bawls, bears, bells, blare, blase, blaws.

+1 letter: screwballs.