[f. THUMB sb. + SCREW v., or f. prec.; evidenced earlier than the sb.] trans. To torture by screwing the thumbs; to torture with or as with thumb-screws. Hence Thumb-screwing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1771. E. Long, in Hone, Every-day Bk. (1827), II. 199. He must … be thumb-screwed.
1792. Gentl. Mag., LXII. I. 260/2. Think what tortures we endur’d,… Whipp’d, chain’d, thumb-screw’d.
1835. Tait’s Mag., II. 377. We tax, distrain, screw, thumb-screw, incarcerate.
1882. Standard, 9 Sept., 5/5. His Highness admits that a case of thumb-screwing has come to his knowledge.
1892. Pall Mall G., 22 Dec., 2/2. We have little sympathy with the thriftless borrowers, but less with the thumbscrewing Shylock.
