Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) foolish, stupid, insane.

1887		Lantern (N.O.) 8 Oct. 3: Notes which are so full of screwy talk.
1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 259: Keep your hand on your stick; if the old guy draws a gun or a knife or tries to do anything screwy, brain him!
1929		A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 213: That guy’s screwy, policeman.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 101: All that screwy stuff got out of his goddam head.
1942		P. Wylie Generation of Vipers 238: Having found every world balance of power a screwy device.
1949		H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 137: Act up as if you’re screwy. But not too much, mind. Just enough to get the old horse-doctor really interested in you.
1949		Cessnock Eagle (NSW) 4 Oct. 4/2: Screws all around and round. I ain’t been so screwed down before. / Yes, I’m going screwey, that’s what they say.
1956		T. Anderson Your Own Beloved Sons 95: If this ain’t the screwiest set-up, I’ll be a sonofabitch.
1962		K. Waterhouse There is a Happy Land (1964) 37: Shu-ut up, screwy! [...] It’s you that’s blinking screwy, man!
1967		(con. 1950s) McAleer & Dickson Unit Pride (1981) 45: He thought we were as screwy an outfit as he’d ever met up with.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 269: I thought I’d go screwy if she said another word in this tone.
1970		T. Southern Blue Movie (1974) 181: Suppose one of those big boobs flips his wig, and does something screwy?
1980		R. Dahl Twits (1982) 75: ‘He’s nutty!’ ‘He’s screwy!’.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 396: Well, that’s a screwy thing.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 389: In his screwy mind, these two English kids were fucking with him by trying to turn up late at his door.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 87: Yeah, dat kinda makes some kinda screwy sorta fucken sense!
2008		T. Piccirilli Fever Kill 68: The missed opportunity, the screwy rendezvous, the dead girl.

(b) odd, strange.

1927–41		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 19: A young Juliet of St. Louis / On a balcony stood, acting screwy.
1934		‘Jiggs in “Phew”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 15: Sump’n screwy about this.
1949		Hal Ellson Duke 9: The whole block was empty, but it looked screwy-like, strange.
1954		J. Thompson Swell-Looking Babe 99: Didn’t that strike you as pretty screwy?
1960		C. Himes Big Gold Dream 73: There was something screwy about this business.
1978		T. O’Brien Going After Cacciato (1980) 252: Then where’d you get such a screwy name?
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 317: It was obvious from the pained expressions on these unusually young and muscular looking Shriners that something was screwy.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 300: Obviously something was screwy, or Sinclair would have been in the lobby.
2000		Time 31 Jan. 8: So just who came up with this screwy idea?
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 224: ‘A screwy hunch. It’s probably nothing, but I’ve got a gut feeling I can’t shake loose’.
2016		Guardian Guide 13 Feb. 15/1: [He] told a room of producers that he was on the hunt for ‘screwy and fucked-up’ programme ideas.

(c) (US) suspicious, alarmed.

1934

R. Chandler ‘Finger Man’ in Pearls Are a Nuisance (1964) 108: When I saw them go on up the street I got screwy.

(d) illegal; counterfeit.

1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 22: It is a federal offence to change bonds that are screwy.
1945		(con. 1939) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 173: Even an ordinary fight they had to muck about with. One of them had to be told it was screwy.
1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 10: The whole deal is screwy.

(e) (US) sexually obsessed.

1935

E.W. Calder ‘Black 13’ in Spicy Adventure Stories Aug. 🌐 Do you know you drive me nuts, Yolande? Do you know I’m screwy about you?