wind

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See also: Wind

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has articles on:
Wikipedia

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English winde, wind, from Old English wind (“wind”), from Proto-Germanic *windaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥tos (“wind”), from earlier *h₂wéh₁n̥ts (“wind”), derived from the present participle of *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”). Cognate with Dutch wind, German Wind, West Frisian wyn, Norwegian and Swedish vind, Icelandic vindur, Latin ventus, Welsh gwynt, Sanskrit वात (vā́ta), Russian ве́тер (véter), perhaps Albanian bundë (“strong damp wind”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • enPR: wĭnd, IPA(key): /ˈwɪnd/
    • Audio (UK)
      		(file)
    • Audio (US)
      		(file)
  • (archaic) enPR: wīnd, IPA(key): /ˈwaɪnd/
  • Rhymes: -ɪnd

Noun[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

wind (countable and uncountable, plural winds)

  1. (countable, uncountable) Real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure.
    The wind blew through her hair as she stood on the deck of the ship.
    As they accelerated onto the motorway, the wind tore the plywood off the car's roof-rack.
    The winds in Chicago are fierce.
    There was a sudden gust of wind.
    • 2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:
      Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.
  2. Air artificially put in motion by any force or action.
    the wind of a cannon ball;  the wind of a bellows
  3. (countable, uncountable) The ability to breathe easily.
    After the second lap he was already out of wind.
    The fall knocked the wind out of him.
  4. News of an event, especially by hearsay or gossip. (Used with catch, often in the past tense.)
    Steve caught wind of Martha's dalliance with his best friend.
  5. One of the five basic elements in Indian and Japanese models of the Classical elements).
  6. (uncountable, colloquial) Flatus.
    Eww. Someone just passed wind.
  7. Breath modulated by the respiratory and vocal organs, or by an instrument.
  8. (music) The woodwind section of an orchestra. Occasionally also used to include the brass section.
  9. A direction from which the wind may blow; a point of the compass; especially, one of the cardinal points, which are often called the "four winds".
  10. Types of playing-tile in the game of mah-jongg, named after the four winds.
  11. A disease of sheep, in which the intestines are distended with air, or rather affected with a violent inflammation. It occurs immediately after shearing.
  12. Mere breath or talk; empty effort; idle words.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 6”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:
      Nor think thou with wind / Of airy threats to awe.
    • 1946, George Orwell, Politics and the English Language:
      Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
  13. A bird, the dotterel.
  14. (boxing, slang) The region of the solar plexus, where a blow may paralyze the diaphragm and cause temporary loss of breath or other injury.
Synonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from wind (noun)
Translations[edit]

See wind/translations § Etymology 1.

See also[edit]

Verb[edit]

wind (third-person singular simple present winds, present participle winding, simple past and past participle winded or (proscribed) wound)

  1. (transitive) To blow air through a wind instrument or horn to make a sound.
    • 1913, Edith Constance Holme, Crump Folk Going Home, page 136:
      Something higher must lie at the back of that eager response to pack-music and winded horn — something born of the smell of the good earth
  2. (transitive) To cause (someone) to become breathless, as by a blow to the abdomen, or by physical exertion, running, etc.
    The boxer was winded during round two.
  3. (transitive, Britain) To cause a baby to bring up wind by patting its back after being fed.
  4. (transitive, Britain) To turn a boat or ship around, so that the wind strikes it on the opposite side.
  5. (transitive) To expose to the wind; to winnow; to ventilate.
  6. (transitive) To perceive or follow by scent.
    The hounds winded the game.
  7. (transitive) To rest (a horse, etc.) in order to allow the breath to be recovered; to breathe.
  8. (transitive) To turn a windmill so that its sails face into the wind.[1]
Usage notes[edit]
  • The form “wound” in the past is occasionally found in reference to blowing a horn, but is often considered to be erroneous. The October 1875 issue of The Galaxy disparaged this usage as a “very ridiculous mistake” arising from a misunderstanding of the word's meaning.
  • A similar solecism occurs in the use (in this sense) of the pronunciation /waɪnd/, sometimes heard in singing and oral reading of verse e.g. The huntsman /waɪndz/ his horn.
Translations[edit]

See wind/translations § Etymology 1.

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle English winden, from Old English windan, from Proto-Germanic *windaną. Compare West Frisian wine, Low German winden, Dutch winden, German winden, Danish vinde, Walloon windea. See also the related term wend.

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

wind (third-person singular simple present winds, present participle winding, simple past and past participle wound or (archaic) winded)

  2. (transitive) To turn coils of (a cord or something similar) around something.
    to wind thread on a spool or into a ball
  3. (transitive) To tighten the spring of a clockwork mechanism such as that of a clock.
    Please wind that old-fashioned alarm clock.
  4. (transitive) To entwist; to enfold; to encircle.
  5. (intransitive) To travel in a way that is not straight.
    Vines wind round a pole.  The river winds through the plain.
    • 1829, Walter Scott, Anne of Geierstein:
      He therefore turned him to the steep and rocky path which […] winded through the thickets of wild boxwood and other low aromatic shrubs.
    • 1751, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
      The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea.
    • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:
      Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.
    • 1969, Paul McCartney, The Long and Winding Road
      The long and winding road / That leads to your door / Will never disappear.
  6. (transitive) To have complete control over; to turn and bend at one's pleasure; to vary or alter or will; to regulate; to govern.
    • 1591, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene i]:
      to turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
    • (Can we date this quote by Robert Herrick (poet) and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please / And wind all other witnesses.
    • 12 October 1710, Joseph Addison, The Examiner No. 5
      Were our legislature vested in the person of our prince, he might doubtless wind and turn our constitution at his pleasure.
  7. (transitive) To introduce by insinuation; to insinuate.
    • c. 1608–1609, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene iii]:
      You have contrived […] to wind / Yourself into a power tyrannical.
    • (Can we date this quote by Government of Tongues and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      little arts and dexterities they have to wind in such things into discourse
  8. (transitive) To cover or surround with something coiled about.
    to wind a rope with twine
  9. (transitive) To cause to move by exerting a winding force; to haul or hoist, as by a winch.
    • 2012, "Rural Affairs", Anna Hutton-North, Lulu.com →ISBN [1]
      Quickly she slammed the door shut and panicking wound the window up as fast as her slippery fingers would allow.
  10. (transitive, nautical) To turn (a ship) around, end for end.
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

See wind/translations § Etymology 2.

Noun[edit]

wind (plural winds)

  1. The act of winding or turning; a turn; a bend; a twist.

References[edit]

  • wind at OneLook Dictionary Search
  1. ^ Rex Wailes (1954) The English Windmill, page 104: “[I]f a windmill is to work as effectively as possible its sails must always face the wind squarely; to effect this some means of turning them into the wind, or winding the mill, must be used.”

Afrikaans[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Dutch wind, from Middle Dutch wint, from Old Dutch wint, from Proto-Germanic *windaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥ts (“blowing”), present participle of *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

wind (plural winde, diminutive windjie)

  1. A wind (movement of air).

Alemannic German[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old High German wint, from Proto-Germanic *windaz. Cognate with German Wind, Dutch wind, English wind, Icelandic vindur, Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌽𐌳𐍃 (winds).

Noun[edit]

wind m

  1. (Carcoforo) wind

References[edit]

  • “wind” in Patuzzi, Umberto, ed., (2013) Ünsarne Börtar [Our Words], Luserna, Italy: Comitato unitario delle linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

Dutch[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle Dutch wint, from Old Dutch wint, from Proto-Germanic *windaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥ts (“blowing”), present participle of *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”).

Noun[edit]

wind m (plural winden, diminutive windje n)

  1. wind (movement of air)
    De wind waait door de bomen. ― The wind blows through the trees.
  2. flatulence, fart
    Synonyms: bout, buikwind, ruft, scheet
Derived terms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
  • Afrikaans: wind
  • → Sranan Tongo: winti

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle Dutch wint. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Noun[edit]

wind m (plural winden, diminutive windje n)

  1. (obsolete) greyhound
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

See the etymology of the main entry.

Verb[edit]

wind

  1. first-person singular present indicative of winden
  2. imperative of winden

Old English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Germanic *windaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥ts (“blowing”), the present participle of *h₂weh₁- (“blow, gust”). Germanic cognates include Old Frisian wind, Old Saxon wind, Dutch wind, Old High German wint (German Wind), Old Norse vindr (Swedish vind), Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌽𐌳𐍃 (winds). The Indo-European root is also the source of Latin ventus (French vent), Welsh gwynt, Tocharian A want, Tocharian B yente.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

wind m

  1. wind
  2. flatulence

Declension[edit]

Declension of wind (strong-a-stem)
Case Singular Plural
nominative wind wind
accusative wind wind
genitive windes winda
dative winde windum

Derived terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

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