Among the instruments of torture used, especially in Scotland, in the late seventeenth century was the screw or thumbscrew.
It was a clamp or vise applied to one or both thumbs of the victim which could be tightened under the slow and inexorable pressure of a screw.
The device was used for extorting confession from an accused, or for exacting money from a victim. Another name for the device was the thumbikins, and an earlier machine, probably intended for compressing the fingers, was known as the pilliwinks.
One who has suffered the accident of having his (or, more likely, her) fingers caught in an electrically operated clothes wringer can faintly imagine the continued and excruciating agony of relentlessly applied compression of the thumbs.
To one who had once suffered the agony, no more than a threat to “put the screws on” was probably necessary to compel acquiescence.
Memory of the torture survives only in the phrase which we use to indicate moral, !zither than physical pressure.
Related Posts
-
Where does the expression “till the cows come home” come from and What does it mean?
Although cows are always milked twice a day, mornings and evenings, the very old homely saying "till the cows come home" refers to the time that cows, with udders painfully full, come to…
-
Where does the expression “to come out flat footed” come from and What does it mean?
There are no ands, ifs, nor buts in the statement of one who "comes out flat footed"; you know exactly what he means and where he stands. We picture him as planted firmly…
-
Where does the expression “to come out at the little end of the horn” come from and What does it mean?
The expression "to come out at the little end of the horn" means to fail in an undertaking; especially, to fail after one has bragged about a result that promised large returns. Such…
-
Where does the expression “come off your perch” come from and What does it mean?
The expression "come off your perch" means: come down a peg or two; don't be too conceited, haughty, or arrogant. The allusion is to the twig serving as a resting place for a…
-
What does the expression “to get one’s come uppance” mean and Where does it come from?
The expression "to get one's come uppance" means: To receive the fate one has merited; to get what is coming to one in the way of chastisement or rebuke. Though "come-uppance," in the…
-
Where does the expression “to be ahead of the game” come from and What does to come out ahead mean?
We, in America, use the expression "to be ahead of the game" in two differing ways. Thus when we say, "Jeff is getting ahead in the store he has recently opened," we mean…
