wind up

Formswinds up, winding up, wound up

1. 1
   finally landphrasal verbintransitive

   To end up somewhere or in some state; to arrive at a final place or result.

   If you keep spending like that, you'll wind up broke by the end of the year.

   We took a wrong turn and wound up in a tiny village two hours from home.

   Similarland, finish

   Note

   As a linking verb it ties the subject to where things finished, and three kinds of complement follow: an adjective (wind up broke), a place (wound up in a tiny village), or an -ing verb (wound up working as a horse groom). End up and turn out are its close partners; start out, the way things began, is its opposite.

2. 2
   finishphrasal verbtransitive

   To bring something to an end.

   The chair wound up the meeting with a short thank-you to the volunteers.

   Let's wind things up by noon so everyone can get lunch.

   Similarfinish, end, conclude, complete, finalize

   Oppositestart (entry), begin, open

   Note

   The phrase suits a planned ending, the closing stretch of an event as well as the moment it stops: in Frazer's The Golden Bough a general feast winds up the proceedings. The past is wound up, with wound rhyming with sound, never winded up, and the same form serves ending up somewhere (we wound up in Leeds) and, said of a company, dissolving it.

3. 3
   turn the keyphrasal verbtransitive

   To wind the spring or other energy-storing mechanism of a clock, watch or similar device so that it runs again or keeps running.

   Every Sunday night, Grandpa wound up the old clock in the hall.

   Don't forget to wind up your watch, or it will stop by morning.

   Note

   The object can sit on either side of up, wind up the clock or wind the clock up, but a pronoun goes inside: wind it up. The past tense needs care, because I wound up the clock is this sense, while I wound up fixing the clock is the "end up" sense.

4. 4
   excitephrasal verbfigurativelytransitive

   To excite someone, stirring them up.

   Don't wind the kids up with sweets right before bedtime.

   A pep rally is meant to wind up the team before a big game.

   Similarexcite, stimulate, rouse, animate

   Oppositecalm, soothe, settle

5. 5
   irritatephrasal verbfigurativelytransitive

   To upset someone; to make them angry or distressed.

   Nothing winds him up more than people who talk during movies.

   Losing to a late penalty seemed to wind up the coach more than anything else.

   Similarannoy, irritate, bug, irk, aggravate

   Oppositecalm, soothe, placate

6. 6
   clockworkadjective · wind-up

   Of a machine or device, needing to be wound up in order to work.

   The museum displays a row of wind-up tin robots in a glass case.

   During the blackout we listened to the news on a wind-up radio.

   Similarclockwork

   Note

   It goes before a noun and takes no degrees, so a toy either is wind-up or is not: a wind-up toy, a wind-up radio for a blackout. The word comes straight from winding a clock or watch, and it describes anything that runs only after someone has wound it by hand.

7. 7
   raise by handlephrasal verbtransitive

   To raise something, such as a car window or a well bucket, by turning a crank.

   Wind your window up, or the dust from the road will blow in.

   She slowly wound up the bucket from the bottom of the old well.

   Similarraise

   Oppositelower

8. 8
   coil ropephrasal verbtransitive

   To wind something such as rope, string or a mainspring completely.

   After the race, we wound up all the loose lines and stowed them below deck.

   Wind the kite string up before it gets tangled in the trees.

   Similarcoil, reel, roll, spool

   Oppositeunwind, unspool

   Note

   Up here means "all the way," the same completing up as in eat up or use up: to wind up a rope is to wind it until no slack is left. Its opposites, unwind, unspool and play out, all let the line back out again.

9. 9
   pitcher's swingnoun · wind-upcountable

   In baseball, the part of a pitch in which the pitcher swings the arm back before throwing the ball.

   The rookie's high-kicking wind-up made it hard for batters to time his fastball.

   Coaches spent the spring smoothing out the young pitcher's wind-up.

   Note

   A pitcher goes into the wind-up, and the pitch follows; play-by-play calls the moment that way, as in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975): "He's into his wind-up. Here comes the pitch." The motion is also something coaches shape and batters study, since its rhythm tells them when the ball is coming.

10. 10
    draw arm backphrasal verbintransitive

    To go through the preparatory movements before throwing a certain kind of pitch.

    Some relievers never wind up, pitching from the stretch even with the bases empty.

    Runners can steal more easily when a pitcher winds up for every pitch.

    Note

    The verb takes for and the pitch to come, as in winding up for a fastball, and the motion can itself be a feint when the pitch that follows is not the one it promised. A pitcher who skips it pitches from the stretch; the motion skipped is the wind-up.

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