tornillo

[ tawr-nil-oh, -nee-oh; Spanish tawr-nee-lyaw, -nee-yaw ]

noun

, plural tor·nil·los [tawr-, nil, -ohz, -, nee, -ohz, taw, r, -, nee, -lyaws, -, nee, -yaws].

1. screw bean.

Word History and Origins

Origin of tornillo¹

1835–45, Americanism; < Spanish: screw, clamp, equivalent to torn ( o ) lathe, gyration (< Latin tornus lathe < Greek tórnos ) + -illo diminutive suffix (< Latin -illum )

Example Sentences

After a long walk through the cool of the Cutivireni forest, past towering tornillo trees and mashonastes with their great buttressed trunks, dangling orchids and tree ferns – suddenly, a clearing.

From The Guardian

These new sounds create a waveform that twists to a point like a screw — so the researchers called them tornillos, Spanish for screw.

From The Verge

It captures the mesquite and cat-claw thickets of tornillo bushes and encounters with the “wild and wooly” cow men of Roswell and Carlsbad.

From New York Times

Loggers were interested in the mahogany, oak and tornillo trees that grow to impressive heights in this part of the rainforest around Cutivireni in central Peru.

From The Guardian