Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
😬 To make a mistake 🤨 To make a face
to screw up

to screw up

22 5.0
To make your face show a strong feeling like pain or dislike
  • phrasal verb
  • /skruː ʌp/
translation icon : hacer una mueca
  • The sunlight hit us hard, and we stopped short, screwing up our faces.
  • screwed up his face
  • screwed up his eyes
  • screwed up her mouth

It's two days later now and my neck is just so screwed up.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • His eyes were shut so tight that his face was screwed up in a grimace.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • I saw that she was screwing her face up with the effort not to cry.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Hey look, his eyes were all screwed up for a second.

    Deadlocked (2020)

  • Was it the accident, the same one that screwed your face up?

    Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

  • His mouth was screwed up as if to spit, but nothing came out.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • "And the girl you shared the room with?" Gloria screwed up her face.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • "Didn't you keep any of it to wear?" She screwed up her mouth and shook her head.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • His thin features were screwed up in anger, his complexion wan.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Lita's small face screwed up with dismay, and Luis said, "They'll be back after a while."

    Fiction book (1998)

  • He screwed up his face tightly, trying to hold back his feelings of disappointment.

Synonyms

to grimace
vsto screw up
29 4.4

To twist your face to show pain, disgust, or a forced smile

is mainly a tightened or strained facial expression, not only pain or disgust
to contort
vsto screw up
17 7.5

To twist a body or object into a strange shape

is specific to tightening a facial area into a tense or strained look
to tense up
vsto screw up
  • Informal
9 3.7

To make your muscles tight when you feel nervous

is a physical tightening of a body part, often a facial expression

Antonyms

to relax
78 1.0

To make or become less tight

to unwind
35 3.4

Become relaxed and less tense after work or a stressful time

How Tense

to contort
17 7.5
to grimace
29 4.4
to screw up
22 5.0
to tense
9 4.0
to scrunch up
  • Informal
1 4.1
to pucker
25 5.2
to relax
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

screw up infinitive
screwed up past
screwed up past participle
screwing up present participle
screws up third person singular

Morphology

screw + up

The verb 'screw' has a core sense of twisting/tightening and the particle 'up' often signals increase/completion, so the image of 'twisting/tightening' maps reasonably to 'contorting the face' — learners can partially infer the meaning. However this is a metaphorical extension from a mechanical sense and the exact bodily-contortion sense may not be fully predictable without exposure, so it is not fully transparent.

Etymology

Screw up shows the image of turning or twisting a part of the body, as if you screw your face up like a screw; you make a tight, strained shape. That's why it means 'to tighten or twist part of your body, especially the face'.