A tool with a twisted metal spiral that you twist into a cork to pull it out of a wine bottle.
Compound of 'cork' (the stopper) and 'screw.' The tool was invented in the 1600s-1700s because corks became the standard way to seal bottles, and someone needed an efficient way to remove them.
The corkscrew is such a clever simple machine that it inspired the scientific principle of the 'mechanical advantage'—the spiral shape lets you remove a tight cork with less force than if you just pulled straight up! Some fancy corkscrews are works of art worth hundreds of dollars.
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