Thumbscrew

Definitions: Thumbscrew

Thumbscrew

Noun

1. Instrument of torture that crushes the thumb.

2. Screw designed to be turned with the thumb and fingers.

Date "thumbscrew" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1906. (references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Scourge	Triangle, wooden horse, iron maiden, thumbscrew, boot, rack, wheel, iron heel; chinese water torture.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

The thumbscrew is an instrument of torture which was used in medieval Europe, notably by the Inquisition. It is a simple vise, sometimes with protruding studs on the interior surfaces. The torture victim's thumbs or fingers were placed in the vise and slowly crushed.

Similar devices were sometimes applied to toes, knees, etc.

Thumbscrew is also used to refer to a screw with a tall head with ridged sides, intended to be tightened and loosened by hand. They usually have a slot for a flathead screwdriver as well.

Domain	Title
Books	Thumbscrew and Rack (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Thumbscrew" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Thumbscrew" is used about 3 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	3	202,518

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "thumbscrew"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Arabic		‏لولب إبهامي, ‏قلاووظ إبهامي. (various references)

Chinese		平头螺丝. (various references)

Dutch		schroefstop (chisel head stopper, thumbscrew stopper). (various references)

Finnish		kierretulppa (chisel head stopper, thumbscrew stopper), kierrekorkki (chisel head stopper, thumbscrew stopper). (various references)

French		vis à oreilles (thumb screw), vis à ailettes (thumb screw). (various references)

German		Daumenschraube. (various references)

Greek		βίδα στρεφόμενη διά των δάκτυλων, βίδα (bolt, screw). (various references)

Hebrew		ברג פרפר. (various references)

Hungarian		szárnyas csavar (wing), pillangócsavar, hüvelykszorító (thumb-screw). (various references)

Italian		serrapollici. (various references)

Manx		scrod skianagh. (various references)

Pig Latin		umbscrewthay

Portuguese		parafuso que possui apoio para os dedos. (various references)

Russian		барашек (baa lamb, baalamb, whitecap). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		vrsta sprave za mučenje. (various references)

Spanish		tornillo de mariposa (butterfly screw, thumb screw, wing bolt, wing screw), empulgueras (screws). (various references)

Swedish		tumskruv. (various references)

Thai		ตะปูควง. (various references)

Turkish		kelebek vida, başparmağı sıkmaya yarayan işkence aleti. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "thumbscrew": thumbscrews. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "b-c-e-h-m-r-s-t-u-w"
	-2 letters: butchers, chetrums.
	-3 letters: becrust, becurst, butcher, butches, cherubs, chetrum, cumbers, mutches, rectums, stewbum, wuthers.
	-4 letters: berths, besmut, brumes, brutes, burets, busher, buster, cherts, cherub, chutes, cruets, crumbs, cruset, crwths, cubers, cumber, curets, eructs, estrum, muches, musher, muster, rebuts, rectum, rectus, recuts, rheums, rhumbs, ruches, smutch, therms, thrums, thumbs, truces, tubers, tusche, umbers, wechts.
	Words containing the letters "b-c-e-h-m-r-s-t-u-w"
	+1 letter: thumbscrews.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.