Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

screwball

screwball , noun

1.
An eccentric or crazy person; an oddball.
2.
(Baseball) A baseball pitch that curves in the direction opposite to that of a curve ball.

screwball , adjective

1.
Eccentric; zany; crazy; as, screwball antics; a screwball comedy.
2.
Ridiculously unsound; improbable or doomed to failure; -- of plans or ideas; as, a screwball plan to raise cocoanuts in Alaska.