Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Something wound about a center or an object.
  • noun The way in which something is wound.
  • noun One complete turn of something wound.
  • noun A curve or bend, as of a road.
  • adjective Twisting or turning; sinuous.
  • adjective Spiral.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Any portion of an electric circuit which is coiled.
  • Curving; spiral: as, a winding stair.
  • Full of bends or turns: as, a winding path.
  • Warped; twisted; bent; crooked: as, a winding surface.
  • noun A call by the boatswain's whistle.
  • noun A turn or turning; a bend; flexure; meander: as, the windings of a road or stream.
  • noun A twist in any surface, so that all its parts do not lie in the same plane; a casting or warping.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Twisting from a direct line or an even surface; circuitous.
  • noun A turn or turning; a bend; a curve; flexure; meander.
  • noun (Elec.) The material, as wire or rope, wound or coiled about anything, or a single round or turn of the material
  • noun an engine employed in mining to draw up buckets from a deep pit; a hoisting engine.
  • noun a sheet in which a corpse is wound or wrapped.
  • noun (Naut.) a tackle consisting of a fixed triple block, and a double or triple movable block, used for hoisting heavy articles in or out of a vessel.
  • noun (Naut.) A call by the boatswain's whistle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb UK to turn a boat around in a canal
  • noun the act or process of winding (turning around)
  • verb Present participle of wind.
  • noun something wound around something else
  • noun the manner in which something is wound
  • noun one complete turn of something wound
  • noun electrical a length of wire wound around the core of an electrical transformer
  • adjective twisting, turning or sinuous
  • adjective spiral or helical

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of winding or twisting
  • adjective of a path e.g.
  • adjective marked by repeated turns and bends

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

wind +‎ -ing, from wind ("movement of air"), as the wind was used to assist turning.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

wind +‎ -ing, from wind ("to wrap").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word winding.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.