screw off

See also: screw-off

English edit

screw off (third-person singular simple present screws off, present participle screwing off, simple past and past participle screwed off)

To remove the lid of a jar or other container by unscrewing it.
- 2004, Cathy Myata, Speaking rules!: Games and activities for creating effective speakers, presenters and storytellers, page 52:
  Hold it in two hands and screw off the lid. Set the lid down. Inside are pickled onions.
(idiomatic, colloquial) To fail to do one's work; to goof off.
When the boss wasn't around on the weekend they would sometimes screw off.
- 1878, Robert White Stevens, On the stowage of ships and their cargoes: with information regarding freights, charter parties, &c., &c., page 798:
  On account of the high rate of wages at Sydney, stevedores will not "screw off" now so willingly as they did formerly.
(idiomatic, colloquial) To leave; to bugger off.
I finished the work early so I screwed off.

(idiomatic, vulgar, dismissal) To tell someone to leave or to stop being bothersome.
I said no. Now screw off!
(idiomatic, possibly vulgar) An expression of surprise or disbelief.
"We just won a new car!" "Screw off! You're joking, right?"

As a way of urging someone to leave, it is considered vulgar in many settings but may be only a lighthearted rebuke in others.