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''have a screw loose'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260531203738-00-⌔

have a screw loose - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

have a screw loose (third-person singular simple present has a screw loose, present participle having a screw loose, simple past and past participle had a screw loose)

  • (slang) To be insane, irrational, or eccentric.
    • ✤ Richard, glorious in new livery, […] went with his sad message, first to the church and then to the banqueting-hall in Albemarle Street. “Not any wedding?” said the head-waiter at the hotel. “I knew they was folks as would have a screw loose somewheres. […]”1
    • ✤ “You know he really has got a screw loose in his head somewheres, an’ there ain’t any one but what says he’s the town fool, all right.”2
    • ✤ Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) would be just another irritating office brown-noser, a prep school Sammy Glick, except that he too has a screw loose and a mystical rapport with firearms.3
    • ✤ “A successful murder has to be ‘attempted’ in the first place.” “We both know what matters here is how you perceive the meaning.” “Any immortal who considers that a loophole has a screw loose.” “For all I know, your screws…” “I vow to not do anything with the intent of Elliot getting killed, okay? Leave my screws out of this.”4

Pronunciation

  • Audio (Australian): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1871 July – 1873 February, Anthony Trollope, “The Major”, in The Eustace Diamonds. A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1872, →OCLC, page 306, column 1: ↩

  2. 1916, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 22, in Just David: ↩

  3. 2010 July 16, Alessandra Stanley, “Television: Back to Work for ‘Mad Men’”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 June 2016: ↩

  4. 2016 September 23, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Friday, Sep 23, 2016: ↩

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