screwball

[ skroo-bawl ]
See synonyms for screwball on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Slang. an eccentric or irrational person; a nut: When the FBI first looked into him, they thought he was a harmless screwball.

  2. Baseball. a pitched ball that curves toward the side of the plate from which it was thrown, in a trajectory opposite to that of a curve ball: Has the once popular screwball vanished completely from the major leagues?

adjective
  1. Slang. eccentric or irrational; nutty: What a screwball idea!

Origin of screwball

1
First recorded in 1865–70; in 1935–40 for def. 2; screw + ball1

Words Nearby screwball

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use screwball in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for screwball

screwball

/ (ˈskruːˌbɔːl) slang, mainly US and Canadian /


noun
  1. an odd or eccentric person

adjective
  1. odd; zany; eccentric

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012