wind down

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See also: winddown

English

Pronunciation

Verb

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

  1. (transitive, of an object that can be raised or lowered) To lower by winding, as with a crank or windlass.
    Synonyms: roll down, lower
    Antonyms: wind up, roll up, raise
    Wind down the car window if you want to talk to me.
  2. (transitive, of a device with a mainspring) To unwind.
    Synonyms: unwind, deactivate
    Antonyms: wind, wind up, activate
    You'd better wind down that wind-up toy before you take it apart, or pieces might go flying.
  3. (transitive) To shut down slowly (by degrees or in phases).
    Synonyms: unwind, shut down
    Antonyms: activate, fire up, power up, start up, boot up
    A program as complex as the Space Shuttle program takes some time to wind down.
    • December 15 2022, Samanth Subramanian, “Dismantling Sellafield: the epic task of shutting down a nuclear site”, in The Guardian:
      As a result, Bowman admitted, Sellafield’s scientists are having to invent, mid-marathon, the process of winding the site down – and they’re finding that they still don’t know enough about it.
  4. (intransitive) To slow, as if coming to an end; to become calmer or less busy.
    Synonym: taper off
    The festival seems to be winding down now.
  5. (intransitive, idiomatic) To relax; to get rid of stress; to destress.
    Synonyms: calm down, unwind, chill out, let off steam
    Antonym: power up
    After a long day at work, she winds down by kickboxing.

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