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Wind off   /wɪnd ɔf/   Listen
verb
Wind  v. t.  (past & past part. wound, rarely winded; pres. part. winding)  
1.
To turn completely, or with repeated turns; especially, to turn about something fixed; to cause to form convolutions about anything; to coil; to twine; to twist; to wreathe; as, to wind thread on a spool or into a ball. "Whether to wind The woodbine round this arbor."
2.
To entwist; to infold; to encircle. "Sleep, and I will wind thee in arms."
3.
To have complete control over; to turn and bend at one's pleasure; to vary or alter or will; to regulate; to govern. "To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus." "In his terms so he would him wind." "Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please And wind all other witnesses." "Were our legislature vested in the prince, he might wind and turn our constitution at his pleasure."
4.
To introduce by insinuation; to insinuate. "You have contrived... to wind Yourself into a power tyrannical." "Little arts and dexterities they have to wind in such things into discourse."
5.
To cover or surround with something coiled about; as, to wind a rope with twine.
To wind off, to unwind; to uncoil.
To wind out, to extricate. (Obs.)
To wind up.
(a)
To coil into a ball or small compass, as a skein of thread; to coil completely.
(b)
To bring to a conclusion or settlement; as, to wind up one's affairs; to wind up an argument.
(c)
To put in a state of renewed or continued motion, as a clock, a watch, etc., by winding the spring, or that which carries the weight; hence, to prepare for continued movement or action; to put in order anew. "Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years." "Thus they wound up his temper to a pitch."
(d)
To tighten (the strings) of a musical instrument, so as to tune it. "Wind up the slackened strings of thy lute."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wind off" Quotes from Famous Books



... matter. Had the House of Commons had to {181} decide this question, with Mr. Lowe to quote the description given by Basil Hall[306] (who, by the way, was one of the Committee) of an observation on which the safety of the ship depended, worked out by the light of a lantern in a gale of wind off a lee shore, this simple and useful change might at this moment have been in the hands of its tenth ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... admirals, and captains, all seeking the same ends, matters will at times work at cross purposes, only proves the common experience that things will not always go straight here below. When Nelson was hunting for the French fleet before the battle of the Nile, his flagship was dismasted in a gale of wind off Corsica. The commander of the frigates, his lookout ships, having become separated in the gale, concluded that the Admiral would have to return to Gibraltar, and took his frigates there. "I thought he knew me better," commented Nelson. "Every moment I have to regret the frigates having ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... among them, picking her way in and out a hundred deaths. Baffled by the unyielding wind off Cape Horn, sailing six weeks on opposite tacks, and ending just where they began, weather-bound in sight of the gloomy Horn. Then the terrors of a land-locked bay, and a lee shore; the ship tacking, writhing, twisting, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade



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