put the screws on/to (someone or something)

idiom

informal

: to use force or the threat of force to make (someone or something) do what one wants

The government is finally putting the screws to an industry that's been evading environmental laws for years.

Examples of put the screws on/to (someone or something) in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Unlike Joe Biden, the story went, America’s new president was willing to put the screws to Israel to compel quiet in Gaza and would keep the deal on track. —Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic, 18 Mar. 2025

Some in Trump’s orbit have advocated wielding U.S. military aid to Ukraine as a cudgel against whichever party proves intransigent in the talks: either by threatening to ramp up assistance to Kyiv to put the screws on Russia or to cut it off if Ukraine refuses to make the necessary compromises. —Samuel Charap, Foreign Affairs, 24 Dec. 2024

Politicians, party hacks, and fat-cat donors hit the panic button and put the screws to Biden to compel him to drop out of the race. —Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 22 July 2024

That means that Beijing can put the screws on France without hurting its economy too much. —Lionel Lim, Fortune Asia, 12 Jan. 2024

And the second one is that the U.S. holds tremendous structural economic power in the international system and can really put the screws to China. —Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Foreign Affairs, 17 Nov. 2022

And President Xi Jinping has put the screws to tech firms in the past. —Will Oremus, Washington Post, 17 Apr. 2023

The Argentine lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo, who has put the screws to genocidal strongmen and placed dictators behind bars, isn’t sure whether Donald Trump should be tried for the Jan. 6 riot. —Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times, 1 Mar. 2023

And while America is embracing the Saint Peter’s story — who wouldn’t love a 2,200-student commuter school on a busy street in Jersey City trying to put the screws to Tobacco Road? — the Peacocks themselves are soaking it in without taking that seeding so seriously. —Tim Bielik, cleveland, 27 Mar. 2022