להתברג to screw oneself

By the laws of Hebrew grammar that's what it ought to mean, but leave it to sports writers to find it a nicer use.

The word was first used in the context of dribbling in soccer.
These days, "lehitbareg" means to wedge oneself into a group or situation. Photo by Reuters

In its most literal sense hitbareg (to use the singular past tense) is a reflexive verb meaning to screw oneself; but it is also a reciprocal verb, meaning that two objects are connected to one another by a screwing action. In fact, this is how the word was used at first when it entered use in the 1930s, usually referring to connecting pipes.

Then come 1947, Jacko Farchi, sports editor at the socialist newspaper Al Hamishmar, gave the word a new twist when reporting on a soccer game between Haifa and a Hungarian team: “Y. Meirovitch mitbareg into the opposing teams defense and after he drew in his opponents, passed the ball with a long left pass to Y. Fuchs.”

What Farchi meant was that Meirovitch was dribbling in a spiral fashion through the Hungarian defense, and he used the verb mitbareg to indicate the spiral motion like the spiral on the screw.

His neologism spread among sports writers in the 1950s and 1960s. But over time the spiral sense of the word was forgotten and the word was taken to mean “difficulty pushing into the opponents defense” much like a screw is inserted (with much effort) into wood.

Eventually sports writers started using the word to mean "hardly placing" (as in a team) or barely making the cut.

Then in the early 1980s, the word moved from the sports world to general use. Now it is used to mean "barely making it", with great effort involved. The literal sense of screwing oneself migrated to a very different phrase.

Today the words best meaning is "to fit"