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View synonyms for

wind up

/ ɲɪԻ /

verb

  1. to bring to or reach a conclusion

    he wound up the proceedings

  2. tr to tighten the spring of (a clockwork mechanism)
  3. informal.
    tr; usually passive to make nervous, tense, etc; excite

    he was all wound up before the big fight

  4. tr to roll (thread, etc) into a ball
  5. an informal word for liquidate
  6. informal.
    intr to end up (in a specified state)

    you'll wind up without any teeth

  7. tr; usually passive to involve; entangle

    they were wound up in three different scandals

  8. tr to hoist or haul up
  9. slang.
    tr to tease (someone)
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


noun

  1. the act of concluding
  2. the finish; end
  3. slang.
    an act or instance of teasing

    she just thinks it's a big wind-up

“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

They wind up getting cast, under strained dramatic circumstances, in the school musical, and a romance of sensitive oddballs blossoms.

From

“The youth presently in Los Padrinos will need to go somewhere, and if some wind up at Camp Scott, the public release of photos and videos could be seriously detrimental,” Sargent wrote.

From

And even if you’re able to keep your job under the Family and Medical Leave Act, you may wind up needing to take an unpaid leave of absence.

From

Immortality offers a liberation that the Jim Crow-era South doesn’t, both for the Black characters and even the white ones, whose bigoted special status winds up narrowing their options.

From

One episode opens with a black-and-white low-budget revisionist movie western — titled “The Long Road Home,” after this series’ own theme — in which Harrison winds up as an extra.

From

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windupwind vane