Meaning & use
corkscrew
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
a tool with a spiral metal point used for pulling corks out of bottles
Grammar: Countable: a corkscrew, two corkscrews.
Patterns
- use a corkscrew
- open a bottle with a corkscrew
Could you pass me the corkscrew? This bottle needs opening.
He bought a fancy corkscrew with a wooden handle.
The waiter used a corkscrew to open the wine.
verbintransitive
to move forward in a twisting, spiral way
Grammar: No object; often used for roads or paths: The road corkscrews up the hill.
Patterns
- corkscrew up
- corkscrew through
- corkscrew into
The mountain road corkscrews up to the summit.
A narrow path corkscrewed through the forest.
The plane corkscrewed down through the clouds.
Word forms
| plural | corkscrews |
|---|---|
| third person singular | corkscrews |
| past tense | corkscrewed |
| past participle | corkscrewed |
| -ing form | corkscrewing |
Common combinations
- corkscrew motion
- The dancer made a corkscrew motion with her body.
- corkscrew curls
- She has beautiful corkscrew curls.
- corkscrew pasta
- I prefer corkscrew pasta for this salad.
- open with a corkscrew
- This bottle can only be opened with a corkscrew.
Synonyms and how they differ
- bottle opener
- A general tool for opening bottles, but it does not have a spiral point and cannot remove corks.
Word family
Commonly confused: corkscrew or cork?
corkscrew vs cork
The cork is the round piece of material that closes a bottle; the corkscrew is the tool that removes it.
Practice
We need a ___ to open this bottle of wine.
Choose one answer.
A corkscrew is the tool for removing a cork. A cork is the stopper itself, and a screw is a fastener, not a tool for opening wine.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “corkscrew”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.