"screw" = "copulate with", 1719

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Thu Aug 12 11:56:10 UTC 2010


I forgot to acknowledge that I came across this use of "screw" in
Thomas A. Foster's Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts
and the History of Sexuality in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006),
pages 81--82.

At 8/11/2010 03:22 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>1719 April 7.
>
>Edward Ellis ... being bound by Recognizance to appear at the
>Sessions of this Court to Answer to such[?] matters & things as
>should be objected against him on his Majesty's behalf, more
>especially for wittingly & willingly making or publishing ... in the
>shop of Mr. Benjamin Gray Book Seller to the Damage or Defamation of
>the Rev. Mr. William Boyd, saying that the sd. Mr. Boyd screwed Mr.
>Longs Maid of Charlestown, he the sd. Edward Ellis there & then
>appeared, and pleaded, Not Guilty.
>
>Antedates OED2 "screw" (v.) sense 13.b.  1725 (dict.), 1796 (dict.), 1927-.
>
>Massachusetts State Archives, Boston.
>Suffolk Country CCP, General Sessions of the Peace.
>Mass. 8-13A, Reel. No. 1451.
>County Court Files / Sessions.
>Page 228.  [Case begins on page 227.]
>
>Joel
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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