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Wind up   /wɪnd əp/   Listen
Wind up

verb
1.
Finally be or do something.  Synonyms: end up, fetch up, finish, finish up, land up.  "He wound up being unemployed and living at home again"
2.
Give a preliminary swing to the arm pitching.
3.
Stimulate sexually.  Synonyms: arouse, excite, sex, turn on.
4.
Coil the spring of (some mechanical device) by turning a stem.  Synonym: wind.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wind up" Quotes from Famous Books



... what do I see—one police officer leaving the front door and another sunning himself in the vestibule. How many more of you are within I do not presume to ask. Some half-dozen, no doubt, and not one of you smart enough to wind up this matter and have ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... popular representation, which, in a measure, proved the commencement of the great Revolution. And there too, in 1822, Felix Neff preached to large congregations, who were so anxious and attentive that he always after spoke of the place as his "dear Vizille;" and now, to wind up the vicissitudes of the great hall, it is used as a place for the printing ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... of the ambulance was a corporal of the R.A.M.C., and he had the "wind up," that is, he had an aversion ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... entertainment will wind up with a dialogue between Arthur (JONES) and Hubert (HERKOMER), of which we give an extract. It represents Arthur as wishing to produce a piece, which Hubert forewarns him will be a failure unless he (HUBERT) paints the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various

... a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... the table. 'Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield might now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... a-blaspheming. I see the "Times" holds out about Gordon, and does not believe he is killed. Poor fellow! I wish I could believe that his own conviction (as he told me) is true, and that death only means a larger government for him to administer. Anyhow, it is better to wind up that way than to go growling out one's existence as a ventose hypochondriac, dependent upon the condition of a few square inches of mucous membrane for one's ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... calendar clock in the car, but, with our watches, which we had never ceased to wind up regularly, we were able to measure the time. The voyage lasted about seventy-two hours, but could, perhaps, have been performed in less time if we had not been somewhat delayed by the towing of the car. They had ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... diamonds into a parcel, and sent it by mail as being the most secure method. Just after doing this, I got a letter informing me of my brother being dangerously ill, and begging me to come to England without delay. I packed up at once, left my partner to wind up the business, and so, here I am, on board the very steamer that carries my ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... begin by obliging unchartered banks to wind up their affairs within a short time, and the others as their charters expired, forbidding the subsequent circulation of their paper. This they would supply with their own, bottomed, every emission, on an adequate tax, and bearing or not bearing interest, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... our praises emulate and vie With His humility! Since He's exiled from skies That we might rise,— From low estate of men Let's sing Him up again! Each man wind up his heart To bear a part In that angelic choir and show His glory high as He was low. Let's sing towards men good-will and charity, Peace upon earth, glory to God ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... untold. He had agreed with the Poysers that he would follow them to their new neighbourhood, wherever that might be, for he meant to give up the management of the woods, and, as soon as it was practicable, he would wind up his business with Jonathan Burge and settle with his mother and Seth in a home within reach of the friends to whom he felt bound ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... passions, temptations, that go to our good and evil account, save One, before whose awful wisdom we kneel, and at whose mercy we ask absolution? Here it ends," thought Pen; "this day or to-morrow will wind up the account of my youth; a weary retrospect, alas! a sad history, with many a page I would fain not look back on! But who has not been tired or fallen, and who has escaped without scars from that struggle?" And ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and when he looked at her Helen became interested in an eagle, which hung poised on broad wings above the valley. "I feel older than I used to, and may quit business when I put this contract through. It is big enough to wind up with. If I'd known Thurston for ages I couldn't be more sure of him. I am a little disappointed that you ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... of Saturday was occupied in making their preparations. After supper, Ready said, "Now, William, before we start on our travels, I think I may as well wind up my history. I haven't a great deal more to tell, as my good fortune did not last long; and after my remaining so long in a French prison, my life was one continued chapter of from bad to worse. Our ship was soon ready, and we sailed with convoy for Barbadoes. Sanders proved a good navigator, and ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... play three games with outside schools," explained Gif to the Rovers one day. "First we play Hixley High. Then we play the Clearwater Country Club. And after that we wind up usually with our big ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield

... disposition, but since those days of joy alas! I was much changed. I had become arrogant, peevish, and above all suspicious. Although the real interest of my narration is now ended and I ought quickly to wind up its melancholy catastrophe, yet I will relate one instance of my sad suspicion and despair and how Woodville with the goodness and almost the power of an angel, softened my rugged feelings and led ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... and dance at my house. Next Saturday will be moonlight, and Stella and I will invite our friends and you must ask yours to come, and we will have a jolly supper, and wash it down with some first-class Kentucky whisky, and wind up the meeting with ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... of the Latin method called parsing, supplement with a more modern development called the analysis of sentences, give a course of exercises in paraphrasing (for the most part the conversion of good English into bad), and wind up with lessons in "Composition" that must be seen to be believed. Essays are produced, and the teacher noses blindly through the product for false concords, prepositions at the end of sentences, and, if a person of peculiarly fine literary quality, for the word "reliable" ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... under the name of Cameron, in Devonshire; and had she not also at that time a little girl,—an infant, or nearly so,—who must necessarily be the young lady who is my uncle's heiress, Miss Evelyn Cameron. My reason for thus troubling you is obvious. As Miss Cameron's guardian, I have very shortly to wind up certain affairs connected with my uncle's will; and, what is more, there is some property bequeathed by the late Mr. Butler, which may make it ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the grating, but now I threw myself into a chair, and sat silent, wondering what I should do. Must I give up this most admirable plan of carrying on my work, simply because those foolish sisters had made absurd rules for themselves? Must I wind up my book for want of material? Not for a moment did I think of getting another secretary, or of selecting some other sort of that stuff which literary people call padding, for the purpose of prolonging my pleasant labors. I was becoming interested in the love-story I had ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... Jimmy O'Shea beside me. "All right, mother." He was patting an excited woman on her back. "I'll help you." He started to pick up the contents of her barrow, which reposed principally in the gutter, having been knocked off by a bolting horse. "No need to get your wind up. You're cutting no ice in this show; you're only on as ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... to yourself only, for I am still much in the gentleman's mercy. Perhaps I injure the man in the idea I am sometimes tempted to have of him—God forbid I should! A little time will try, for in a month I shall go to town to wind up ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... quiet, getting a welcome rest in a half-wet, half-frozen ditch. We talked of home and how we had spent other Christmases, but I do not think we either expressed or held any other thought for the future than when we should bring our discomforts to an end and wind up the siege by a determined attack on Sebastopol. Little we expected that after long separation our paths would again come together in America, serving the Canadian Government in the organization of its militia. And amongst the ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... gathering in her skirt a little—and this obviously was the cue for a gallant soldier. The corporal began, indeed, to wind up his line, but with a foolish grin and a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the weed? Alas, on the man's left hand an old pollard leant into the water, barring all downward movement. Jump in and run round? He had rather to run back from the bank, from fear of a loose line; the fish was coming at him so fast that there was no time to wind up. Safe into the weeds hurls the fish; the man, as soon as he finds the fish stop, jumps in mid-leg deep, and staggers up to him, in hopes of clearing; finds the dropper fast in the weeds, and the stretcher, which had been in the fish's mouth, wantoning ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... himself to be thrown. Once flat of his back on the ground—the ground, where never by man of martial might had he yet been matched—he would find it an easy matter, he doubted not, to bring the long, supple savage underneath; and secure of this advantage, he should then have nothing to do but to wind up his morning's work in the way that ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... would like any future visitors to bring him—a piece of gold and silver embroidery; but, before anything else, I found he would like to have toys—such as Yankee clocks with the face in a man's stomach, to wind up behind, his eyes rolling with every beat of the pendulum; or a china-cow milk-pot, a jack-in-the-box, models of men, carriages, and horses—all animals in fact, and railways ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... the gassed soldiers coming through. Their faces were green and blue, and their uniform a funny colour. I didn't know what was the matter with 'em, and that put the wind up, for I didn't want to look like that. We could hear a gaudy rumpus in the Salient. The civvies were frightened, but they stuck to their homes. Nothing was happening there then, and while nothing is happening it's hard to believe it's going ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... she was not tired of solitude, but she was tired of her intellectual attitude. She was human first and mental afterward; and she wanted nothing on earth but to be the wife of the man whom she had loved for a lifetime in a year. The moment she formulated this wish, hesitation fled and she could not wind up her engagement with Burleigh rapidly enough. Her letter, however, was very sweet and apologetic, and it was also very honest. She knew that unless she told him she loved another man and intended to marry him, he would take the next train for the Adirondacks ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... festival, therefore Catalina was not there. It was, indeed, rather an extemporised affair—a sort of jubilee to wind up the performances of the day. The officers and priests were in high spirits, and had put their heads together in getting up the ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... happiness and mediocrity. It produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraft of North, the spiritual guidance of Tomline; enabling its possessors to find their way to wealth, to wind up well, to step with dignity off the stage, to die comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent monument which, in many cases, they deserve. It never would have allowed Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business to ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... Indeed, I would regard free banking as essential. It would give proper elasticity to the currency. As more currency should be required for the transaction of legitimate business, new banks would be started, and in turn banks would wind up their business when it was found that there was a superabundance of currency. The experience and judgment of the people can best decide just how much currency is required for the transaction of the business of the country. It is unsafe to leave the settlement of this question ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... and saucers and goats' milk were also supplied to them, and opaque beet-root sugar. The food they had brought in their baskets, big new broodje split in half, buttered and put together again with a slither of Dutch cheese between. These and, to wind up with, some thin sweet biscuits carried in a papier-mache box, and handed out singly by Vrouw Van Heigen, who had brought them as a ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... expostulated. Why should the whole sport of the evening be spoilt in this fashion? What did it matter what the damned cranky Englishman said? Let him be left to his swilling. They would clear out, and wind up the night at the BAUER; and at four, when that shut, they would go on to the BAYRISCHE BAHNHOF, where they could not only get coffee, but could also see Schilsky off by a train soon after five. These persuasions prevailed, and, still swearing, and threatening, and promising, by all that was ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... you forgit the time and the occasion, Brother Brannum. I'm a worldly man myself, as you may say, but 'twill be long arter I'm more worldlier than what I am before you can ketch me cuttin' sech a scollop as to wind up a funeral sermon wi' a race arter ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... "Silence!" said the minstrel, rather fiercely; "that is an evil and timorous thought. If you are worthy, you will find the way." And so in the hot afternoon he said farewell, and walked lightly off. And Paul stood in wonder and hope, and saw the two figures leave the flat, take to the down, and wind up the steep road, ever growing smaller, till they topped the ridge, where they seemed to stand a moment larger than human; and presently they ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... repeated Grimstone, after drinking the toast. "That title ought to be given to the mistress, not the maid; and I care not if I wind up the evening with a cup of Canary to the health of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... day or two ago I was myself discoursing, with considerable effect, as I thought, on some of the new aspects of humanity, when I was struck full on the cheek by one of these little pellets, and there was such a confounded laugh that I had to wind up and leave off with a preposition instead of a good mouthful of polysyllables. I have watched our young Doctor, however, and have been entirely unable to detect any signs of communication between him and this audacious child, who is like to become a power among us, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... mantelpiece two china vases, painted with flowers, between an elaborate clock, with fearful ornamentation. Rodolphe put the vases in a cupboard, and when the landlord came to wind up the clock, begged him to do nothing of ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... wild—fortunately it was well hooked, and the tackle was strong. What with excitement and the violent action that ensued at each rush, Mr Sudberry was so dreadfully blown in the first minutes, that he trembled from head to foot, and could scarce wind up the line. For one moment the thought occurred that he was too old to become a salmon-fisher, and that he would not be able to fight the battle out. He was quite mistaken. Every minute after this he seemed to gain fresh strength. The salmon happily took it into his head to cease ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... tired of mending the work of the Maker." Yet the more he doubted the harder he worked; though his world spun round and round, shrieking like a clock running down, and he had persuaded himself that all he could do was to wind up the crazy wheels for another year or so. Which all meant that Cautley was working a little too hard and running down himself. He had begun to specialize in gynecology and it increased ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... no joke, Jim; this discussion about the country will wind up in some sort of a revolution. I have been talking around lately among the plain people, and a lot of them declare straight up and down that the country is going to peter out like the water in the tap here in our fifth ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... oxygen; you cannot see this transparent carbonic acid gas, formed by the falling together of carbon and oxygen. The atoms thus in close union resemble our lead weight while resting on the earth; but we can wind up the weight and prepare it for another fall, and so these atoms can be wound up and thus enabled to repeat the process of combination. In the building of plants carbonic acid is the material from which the carbon of the plant is derived; and ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... the enemy back on St. Louis, and wind up by taking that city. General Pillow will march up from New Madrid to co-operate with us, and perhaps he will stop on the way to take Cairo. I hope he will, to pay those Illinois chaps for robbing the St. ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... replied, tersely, "Everybody else carries a watch," meaning that if he wanted to find out the time of day he could do it more quickly by inquiring of his personal or business associates than by looking for a watch that he may have forgotten to wind up. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... limbo for the night; and the justice next morning gave him such a clapper-clawing with his tongue, and bore down upon him so hard with his reprimands, as I think the lawyers call it, and raked him so severely fore and aft with his good advice, to wind up with, that Ben felt pretty sheepish; and, as he told us afterwards, didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels—on the truck, or on the keelson. He felt so sore about it, and so much ashamed of himself, that ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... hour for a modern party, being about the time when the first guest would arrive, was a very late one even in fashionable assemblages at the period in question, and the guests began to think of retiring, when the brawl, intended to wind up the entertainment, was called. The highest animation still prevailed throughout the company, for the generous host had taken care that the intervals between the dances should be well filled up with refreshments, and large bowls ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... along faster and faster, for the house was now quite out of sight. In the distance the way began to wind up-hill, and a stunted, leafless wood straggled along one side of the highway. Babette was just considering whether going through it would shorten her journey, when a woman, dressed in the ordinary peasant ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... see it then, and won't believe there is any hole till they've poked their finger through it. I've got a great many things to thank God for, but perhaps most of all that I can find something to admire, to wonder at, to set my fancy going, and to wind up my enthusiasm ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... not? I will go to him and tell him that I would rather wind up my son's business with him, as our former relations were not of a nature to make transactions of mutual profit either fitting or even permissible between any of our ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... lunch," said Tommy, "and experience the usual change of heart, how shall we wind up the story?" ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... signified by three passages, 1. By his losing his heat before his death, thereby showing his work for God was done, he now only waited to die. 2. By that passage, 'these are the last words of David,' even the wind up of all the doctrines of that sweet psalmist of Israel (2 Sam 23:1,2). 3. That in the Psalms is very significant, 'The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended' (Psa 72:20). In the whole, they all do doubtless speak forth this in the main, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... said Warburton, "but I'm afraid I was thinking of something else, and when I started for the Alps, I had really forgotten all about it. I made up my mind suddenly, you know. We're having a troublesome time in Ailie Street, and it was holiday now or never. By the bye, we shall have to wind up. Sugar spells ruin. We must get out of it whilst we can do ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... how the little signora Inglese would write,' said Luigi; yet cogitating profoundly in a dubitative twinkle of a second as to whether it might not be the English habit to wind up a hasty missive with an expediting oath. He had heard the oath of emphasis in that island: but he decided to let it go as it stood. The man he had summoned was directed to take it straightway and deliver ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... abominable persons; and as for Stukely—well! Mdlle. Dumesnil, in her great, furious scene in Hermione, ended her imprecations against Orestes by spitting in her handkerchief and throwing it in his face. The handkerchief spoils the frenzy. I wonder if it ever occurred to Mrs. Siddons so to wind up her abuse of Austria in "King John." By the by, it was when asked to give his opinion of the comparative merits of Clairon and Dumesnil, that Garrick said, "Mdlle. Clairon was the greatest actress of the age, but that for Mdlle. Dumesnil he was not aware that he had seen her, but only Phedre, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... to wind up accounts for our Herring-lugger: much against us, as the season has been a bad one. My dear Captain, who looks in his Cottage like King Alfred in the Story, was rather saddened by all this, as he had prophesied better ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... supposed to have any knowledge of the external world, and consequently his motion must have been absolute. The learned Professor, who presided on that occasion, was hardly more startled and astonished, than was our learned Professor, five minutes ago. But come; wind up your watch, and let us ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... "and many of the rooms are locked. Even the great drawing-rooms have an uninhabited look, which will make them anything but attractive to a lover of sunshine and comfort; but the library is cheerful, and in that you can sit and imagine yourself at home till lean wind up my business affairs and make possible the trip upon which I have ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... had ended Kosciuszko only waited to wind up his affairs in America, and then he could keep away from his country no longer. He started for Europe in July 1784, landed in France, and by way of Paris reached Poland in the same year. From America he brought an enhanced ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... out the boat and clean up ourselves," came from Fred. "Come, fellows, wind up and put ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer

... spectacle or show, and therefore in the public gaze. When all the enchanters and genies, good and bad, have done their best or worst in King Arthur, the speaking characters finish up their share and the real play in spoken lines; then the singers and band wind up the whole entertainment in a style that was probably thought highly effective in the seventeenth century. After the last chorus—which begins as though the gathering were a Scotch one and we were going to have "Auld Lang ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman

... some manuscripts the four "tragedies" that follow are placed between those of Zenobia and Nero; but although the general reflection with which the "tragedy" of Croesus closes might most appropriately wind up the whole series, the general chronological arrangement which is observed in the other cases recommends the order followed in the text. Besides, since, like several other Tales, the Monk's tragedies were cut short by the impatience ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... clarifies several days later, after it is all over. But to do the same thing a second and third and fourth time, is to bring a man face to face with Death in its fullest and most realistic uncertainty. In soldier jargon he "gets most awful wind up." It is five minutes before "Zero Hour." All preparations are complete. You are waiting for the signal to hop over the parapet. Very probably the Boche knows that you are coming, and is already skimming the sandbags with his machine guns and knocking little pieces of earth and stone into your ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... the play? Of course one can foresee the end; she will come to her husband with the announcement that their longed-for child is going to be born, and that will smooth over everything. So conveniently effective, to wind up a comedy with the commencement of someone else's tragedy. And every one will go away saying 'I'm glad it ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... walking along the edge of the green mound on which the Montmartre telegraph stands. Below me, along one of the zigzag paths which wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my attention. The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some resemblance to a wild beast; and he held a thick stick in his hand, with which he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... State chairman, "you can certainly take rank, at your time of life and after all you've been through, as a top-notch hell of a politician. You start out to run a State campaign, and you wind up by not being able to ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... used to a country where it rained all the time, and pretty soon it began to get on their nerves. They started quarrelling. Nothing bad at first, but hotting up more and more, till at last they were hardly on speaking terms. Every little thing that happened seemed to get the wind up them. There was that business ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... his prayers first, though; but it seemed so strange to me who hadn't heard a prayer for thirty years. I never tried to stop him, you may be certain of that. He'd ask God to bless his pa and ma, and wind up with 'Bless Uncle John too.' Then I couldn't help hugging him right up tighter; for it carried me back to Old Missouri, to the log-cabin in the woods where I was born, and used to say 'Now I lay me,' and 'Our Father' at my ma's knee, when I was a kid like him. I tell ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... lions roaring after their prey do seek their meat from God,"—God, who feedeth the young ravens who call upon Him. He is a God! "He did not make the world," says a wise man, "and then let it spin round His finger," as we wind up a watch, and then leave it to go of itself. No; "His mercy is over all His works." Loving and merciful, the God of nature is the God of grace. The same love which chose us and our forefathers for ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... Newton and his followers have also a very odd opinion concerning the work of God. According to their doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up His watch from time to time; otherwise it would cease to move.[1] He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making is so imperfect, according to these gentlemen, that He is obliged to clean it now ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... morning was backed by twenty thousand good English sovereigns; he was a different individual, a step beyond the casual damnation of the mediocre. "He says he doesn't know what his plans will be. Who knows? Perhaps some one ran away with his best girl. I've known lots of them to wind up out here on ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... leaf frae the birk tree was fa'in', And Martinmas dowie had wind up the year, That Lucy row'd up her wee kist wi' her a' in 't, And left her auld maister and neebours sae dear. For Lucy had served in "The Glen" a' the simmer; She cam there afore the flower bloom'd on the pea; An orphan was she, and they had been gude till her, Sure that was ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... presented your capabilities fully to a prospective employer, do not wind up by marshalling reasons why he should engage you. Avoid the use of the "major premise, minor premise, argument, and logical conclusion." You cannot debate yourself into a job, for the judge is made antagonistic by your method, which puts him on the defensive. It is human nature to ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... would be in the same position as we are when we forget to wind up our watches. Gentlemen savages," he said, turning to the natives and handing them the glass beads, "accept these trifles as ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... mass of perpendicular cliff before described. Happily for us, the wind veered to the westward, releasing us from the prospect of another enforced visit to the wild regions south of the island. It blew harder than ever; but being now a fair wind up the Straits, we fled before it, anchoring again in Port William before midnight. Here we were compelled to remain for a week; for after the gale blew itself out, the wind still hung in the same quarter, refusing to allow us to get back ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... is not to go and learn something about the subject, which one would naturally think the best way of fairly dealing with it; but they abuse the originator of the view they question, in a general manner, and wind up by saying that, "After all, you know, the principles and method of this author are totally opposed to the canons of the Baconian philosophy." Then everybody applauds, as a matter of course, and agrees that it must be so. But ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... way of mysticism is more rigorous and more thorough in its negation than that. Its negations "wind up the hill all the way to the very top." Even the self must be absolutely negated. "The self, the I, the me and the like, all belong to the evil spirit. The whole matter can be set forth in these words: Be ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... back in his arm-chair. "I'm going to be able to get away in a few days' time," he said, indifferently. "I expect to finally wind up the business on the Stock ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... very careful with front doors. Of course, if it was my own house I should have used a latch-key instanter; for I inevitably, I mean invariably, carry a latch-key about with me and when it won't open my front door I use it to wind my watch. You know, it's one of those small keys you can wind up watches with, if you know the kind of key I mean. I'd draw you a picture of it if I had a pencil, but ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... isn't it? In my opinion, she has only to say the word." He paused, seeing his companion's face in the moonlight, for its expression was not encouraging. "Oh, well!" he added, "you needn't lose your temper. There are people who can never see when a thing's humorous; I'll wind up." ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... have accomplished so much. No, Marie, we will have our children educated without being subjected to the depressing influences of caste feeling. Perhaps by the time their education is finished I will be ready to wind up my affairs and take them abroad, where merit and ability will give them entrance into the best circles of ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... forward to such a contingency, thinking how pleasant it would be to have all that money, and cruise about the world in my own yacht, enjoying myself as I knew how. And really I had some reason to hope. I remember he used to wind up the talk of an evening when I dined with him (and got a check) by saying: "My boy, you have talents, if you'd only use 'em." Where were those talents now? Certainly they had not made me shine much during the last ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... with most of the State banking institutions, the Merchants Branch Bank stockholders decided to wind up the concern as a State institution, and avail themselves of the provisions of the National Banking Act. The Merchants National Bank was organized with an authorized capital of one million of dollars, of which six hundred thousand dollars was paid in, Mr. Handy assuming the presidency, and having ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... I wind up the year by chronicling an event which, I fancy, will never occur again, one of the most singular circumstances connected with it being, that the penitent was a Jewess. It occurs in a letter in the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... A.P.M. to say good-bye. When I told him where I was being sent, he said, "That place! Don't you do it. I was waiting there the other day to see someone, and I counted ten bugs on the wall." That put the wind up me, so I wrote to the M.O. and said I had an important (p. 059) meeting at Amiens that evening at 6 p.m., and that I would report at the X—— hospital immediately after that. He seemed rather hurt at my getting out of his reach, but he let me go (as I mentioned having ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... Angels all were singing out of tune, And hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, Or curb a runaway young star or two,[fz] Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue, Splitting some planet with its playful tail, As boats are sometimes by a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... he said, "are what help to make this, which I believe will be the greatest case of my life, so supremely interesting. Any one of my fraternity," he continued, with an air of satisfaction, "can take hold of a thread and follow it step by step, and wind up with the handcuffs, as I did myself with the young man Fairfax. But a case like this, which includes a study of ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... here the moment the sun sets, no matter how hot the day has been. I can hardly hope to make you understand how enjoyable our twilight hours are, with no fear of damp or malaria to spoil them; every turn of the track as we slowly wind up the valley showing us some beautiful glimpse of distant mountain peaks, and, above all, such sunset splendours, gradually fading away into the deep, pure ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... tan; she is going to marry a duke and the boy lieutenant is no longer in it. The real trouble is that the modern novelist has got beyond the happy-marriage mode of ending. He wants tragedy and a blighted life to wind up with. ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... don't you tell me what I am to do with my stocking," cried Hermione. "Oh well, I know what I will do—something quite as quiet as a mouse. I will wind up my poor worsted." Hereupon the little girl picked up the puckered remains of her luckless grey stocking which a facetious young cat had spent at least a quarter of an hour in ingeniously unravelling with his claws. It was a tiresome tedious job we must admit, and required a strong effort ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... again, perceiving that I spoke with a warmth which would not allow me to finish very briefly. He begged to know with what request I intended to wind up so fervent an harangue. ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... people—almost all of them—live in unhealthy offices, in fetid ante-chambers, in little barred dens, and spend their days bowed down beneath the weight of affairs; they rise at dawn to be in time, not to be left behind, to gain all or not to lose, to overreach a man or his money, to open or wind up some business, to take advantage of some fleeting opportunity, to get a man hanged or set him free. They infect their horses, they overdrive and age and break them, like their own legs, before their time. Time is their tyrant: it fails them, it escapes them; ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... had better drop the subject, as Mr. Blake will be here directly,' retorted Audrey, in her most repressive tones. 'Father, do you know you have forgotten to wind up the drawing-room clock? I think ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... of the British-American Coal and Lumber Company, held in Bay City, the feeling uppermost in the minds of those present was one of wrath and indignation at Colonel Thorp, for he still clung to the idea that it would be unwise to wind up the British Columbia end of the business. The colonel's speech in reply was a triumph of diplomacy. He began by giving a detailed and graphic account of his trip through the province, lighting up the narrative with incidents of adventure, both tragic and comic, to such good purpose that before he ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... have a fine dinner, I hear," Miss Presly was saying. "Turkey with oyster dressin', an' cranberries, an' mince an' pun'kin pie, an' reel plum puddin' with brandy poured over 't an' set afire, an' wine dip, an' nuts an' raisins, an' wine itself to wind up on. Emarine's a fine cook. She knows how to git up a dinner that makes your mouth water to think about. You goin' to have ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... however, were Miss Sedgwick and Mrs. Wright (Lavinia D.), the next figures in the procession—the procession that was to wind up indeed with two foreign recruits, small brown snappy Mademoiselle Delavigne, who plied us with the French tongue at home and who had been introduced to us as the niece—or could it have been the grandniece?—of the celebrated Casimir, and ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... over dams. They stand, in imagination, on bridges, in the eddies beneath which they discern the wagging of silvery tails and rosy fins; and a very common form of nightmare with them is to fancy that the reel of the fishing-rod won't work, just as they are going to wind up a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... second year, notwithstanding Jacob Jones' business more than doubled itself, he was compelled to wind up, and found himself twenty-five hundred dollars worse than nothing. Several of his unpaid bills to eastern houses were placed in suit, and as he lived in a state where imprisonment for debt still existed, he was compelled to go through the forms required by the insolvent laws, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... vigorously in his chair—this would never do. He must wind up his affairs here and return to New York. The tranquil backwater had overpowered him for a time; but, again awake, he would strike out strongly... with Sidsall. Endless doubt and hope fluctuated within him. Voices rose from the Napier garden, and from a tree sounded the whirring of the ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... white hotel is in sight above the zigzag on the breast of the precipice, we reach a green and widespread Alp where hundreds of cows are feeding, watched by two forlorn women,—the "milkmaids all forlorn" of poetry. At the rude chalets we stop, and get draughts of rich, sweet cream. As we wind up the slope, the tinkling of multitudinous bells from the herd comes to us, which is also in the domain of poetry. All the way up we have found wild flowers in the greatest profusion; and the higher we ascend, the more exquisite is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... confident that I should not have to be shown a second time how to do anything. Fortunately there are so few ropes on an ordinary sloop that my weak head could carry the names and uses of all without confusion. There was not much wind up there in the lagoon, or the river, as it is more politely called; but what there was came from the westward, and the skipper said it was fair to take us down ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic

... her love of repose she was a worthy disciple of Fontenelle. She carefully avoided all violent passions and all controversies. To her lawyer, who was conducting a suit that worried her, she said, "Wind up my case. Do they want my money? I have some, and what can I do with money better than to buy tranquillity with it?" This aversion to annoyance often reached the proportions of a very amiable selfishness. "She has ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... probably surprised to see no notices from the London press," said Vorticella. "I have one—a very remarkable one. But I reserve it until the others have spoken, and then I shall introduce it to wind up. I shall have them reprinted, of course, and inserted in future copies. This from the 'Candelabrum' is only eight lines in length, but full of venom. It calls my style dull and pompous. I think that will tell its own tale, placed ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... shooting parties the emperor is accustomed to wind up the day with a most extraordinary kind of drink, of which he himself is very fond, and of which he insists upon everybody's partaking, assuring them that it will help them to sleep. It consists of the following ingredients: White beer, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... 65 to wind up harsh to embitter to outflank a riot to hiss thanks to his efforts I cannot bear it any longer ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... prison for debt; come and assist your loving mother, E. Foote.'—'Dear Mother,—So am I; which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affectionate son, Sam Foote.' Not everybody, however, can wind up a letter so neatly as that. A certain commercial house abroad was, perhaps, over-ingenious in its turn of phrase when, writing to an English correspondent, and desiring to be very civil to him, it said: 'Sugars are falling more and more every day; not so the respect and esteem with ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams

... was short, but it was succeeded by others. It soon became quite customary to wind up my daily walk with a chat with the "hermit"—as I got into the way of calling him. For beyond the mystery attaching to the man—or perhaps I ought to say intensifying it—was the fact that he was a really attractive personality. He could talk about the various countries ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... humanity by his unbroken silence, his blank immobility, and his neglect of all the decencies of life. And this is an American resident, if not an American citizen! If the reader is as lucky as the writer, he may wind up the day with a smart shock of earthquake; and if he is equally sleepy and unintelligent (which Heaven forefend!), he may miss its keen relish by drowsily wondering what on earth they mean by moving that very heavy grand piano overhead at that time ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... To wind up our stay at Naples we christened one of the Due de Montebello's sons. The ceremony was performed after the Italian fashion in a drawing-room belonging to the Prince of Salerno, himself a thorough Neapolitan, with his wit and exaggerated drolleries, and the uproar he made and caused wherever ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... give me the cleek, the most powerful and generally useful of them all, though one which is much abused and often called hard names. If you wish, you may drive a very long ball with a cleek, and if the spirit moves you so to do you may wind up the play at the hole by putting with it too. But these after all are what I may call its unofficial uses, for the club has its own particular duties, and for the performance of them there is no adequate substitute. Therefore, when a golfer says, ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... mounted, with his little bundle of "traps" buckled behind him, and, after a prosperous journey, duly reached London, and delivered up the horse as he had been directed. Long after, Mr. Jackson used to tell the story of his cousin's first ride to London with great glee, and he always took care to wind up with—"but Tam forgot to send ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... surprising peculiarities," I observed inanely. "Exactly like men who are not great. But that sort of thing cannot be kept up for ever. How did the great feminist wind up this ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... feet on the floor and his hands already reaching out. Savagely he pulled himself back. Sure, he could save the man—and wind up in the gas chamber! There'd be no mercy for his second offense against Lobby laws. If the spaceman lived, Feldman might get off with a flogging—that was standard punishment for a pariah who stepped out of line. But with his ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while; and perchance wind up my watch, or play with my— some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... his condition what it may, but rejoices in the number of the little ones whose eyes brighten at his coming? But there was a change of greater importance in his prospects. The firm in whose service he was, became involved and had to wind up their business. All the clerks were in a short time discharged, and Wilmer among the rest. The time was one of great commercial pressure, and many long-established houses were forced to yield; others were driven to great curtailment of expenses. The consequence was that few were ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... of the last year of the Nineteenth Century—and a fair, beautiful day it was. The sun shone over Harvey in spite of the clouds from the smelter in South Harvey, and in spite of the clouds that were blown by the soft, south wind up the Wahoo Valley from other smelters and other coal mines, and a score of great smoke stacks in Foley and Magnus and Plain Valley, where the discovery of coal and oil and gas, within the decade that was passing, had turned the Valley into ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... Ellen Robinson was absorbed in the presents. There was a camera for Junior, a gold chain and locket for Elaine, a beautiful doll for Dorothy, and a small train of cars that would wind up and run on a miniature track for Bertie; so of course everything had to be looked at and tried. Elaine put on her chain, and preened herself before the glass; Junior had to understand at once just how to take a picture; everybody had ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... could be indueed by no persuasion of Walter's to wind up the big watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the sugar-tongs and teaspoons. 'No, no, my lad;' was the Captain's invariable reply to any solicitation of the kind, 'I've made that there little property over, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... Do not, then, wind up that light In ribbons, and o'er-cloud in night, Like the sun in's early ray; But shake your head ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... don't know whether we can make it or not," said the pilot. "There's a forty-mile-an-hour wind up aloft, and we're going straight in the teeth of it. Maybe we'll have ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... and poker for some time, and have been several thousand dollars loser, and I knew sooner or later the books would be overhauled, so I collected some money and skipped. Here I am, and what to do I don't know, nor where I shall wind up." ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... delicate, angelic woman can): that is thunder, and only clears the air. She betakes herself to tears, sobs, and embroidered cambric: that's a shower, and everything will be greener and fresher after it. You may go your ways,—one to his farm, another to his merchandise; the world will not wind up its affairs just yet. But, put the case, she goes on the even tenor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various



Words linked to "Wind up" :   land up, shake up, wind, windup, turn, finish, swing, act, move, baseball game, fasten, baseball, stir, fetch up, shake, tempt, tighten, stimulate



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