Wind-up

//ˈwaɪndˌʌp// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The end or conclusion of something.

    "Everyone is invited to our end-of-term wind-up party."

  2. 2
    The punch line of a joke or comedy routine.
  3. 3
    A humorous attempt to fool somebody; a practical joke in which the victim is encouraged to believe something untrue. British

    ""Is this a wind-up, or what?" "No, no, it's true. He can really do it.""

  4. 4
    The phase of making a pitch where the pitcher moves his or her arm backwards before throwing the ball.

    "He's into his wind-up. Here comes the pitch. Strike on the inside corner!"

  5. 5
    A circular hand gesture, supposed to represent the winding on of film, used to signal to a performer to finish quickly.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Needing to be wound up in order to function. not-comparable

    "Maybe you could get a wind-up toy to distract him."

Example

More examples

"Does anyone still use a wind-up alarm clock these days?"

Etymology

Deverbal from wind up.

Related phrases

wind-up merchantwind-up radiowind-up toy

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.