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winding

Pronunciation: /ˈwɪndɪŋ/

The English word “winding” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The act of winnowing (“subjecting food grain to a current of air to separate the grain from the chaff”).
  2. The act of blowing air through a wind instrument or (chiefly) a horn to make a sound.
  3. The act of twisting something, or coiling or wrapping something around another thing.
  4. A curving, sinuous, or twisting movement; twists and turns.
  5. A curving, sinuous, or twisting form.
  6. Chiefly followed by up: the act of tightening the spring of a clockwork or other mechanism.
  7. Sometimes followed by up: the act of hoisting something using a winch or a similar device.
  8. Twists and turns in an occurrence, in thinking, or some other thing; also, moral crookedness; craftiness, shiftiness.
  9. The act or process of turning a boat or ship in a certain direction.
  10. A variation in a tune.
  11. Something wound around another thing.
  12. A length of wire wound around the armature of an electric motor or the core of an electrical transformer.
  13. Synonym of lapping (“lengths of fine silk, metal wire, or whalebone wrapped tightly around the stick of the bow of a string instrument adjacent to the leather part of the bow grip at the heel”).
  14. A decorative object, design, or other thing with curves or twists.
  15. Synonym of withe or withy (“a flexible, slender shoot or twig, especially when used as a band or for binding”); also, all the withies used to make or repair a wall, or the process of using withies in this manner.

adjective

  1. Causing one to be breathless or out of breath.
  2. Of a horn or wind instrument: blown to make a sound.
  3. Moving in a sinuous or twisting manner.
  4. Sinuous, turning, or twisting in form.
  5. Chiefly of a staircase: helical, spiral.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English winding, windinge, wyndynge (“act of exposing something to the wind, airing, ventilating; act of winnowing (?)”), from winden, wynden (“to expose (something) to the air or wind, ventilate; to cause (someone) to be out of breath; to winnow (wheat); of an animal: to catch the scent of (someone or something)”) + -ing, -inge (suffix forming gerund nouns, and…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.