to wind up
523
4.3
- phrasal verb
- /wɪnd ʌp/
- Informal
:
acabar
- And I wound up in the hospital.
- eventually wind up
- ultimately wind up
- wind up going
So, so that's what we did and it wound up being a great decision.
- So, so that's what we did and it wound up being a great decision.
- Happiness is something that we wind up blundering into.
- Like how did you wind up the commander of STRATCOM, Right.
- But first, let's talk about how we wound up building this thing.
- So how would Greg wind up with the very same wrong address?
- So it's actually just Ryan and he winds up being let go that day.
- They, they have a double risk of winding up in the intensive care unit.
- John Locke's essay winds up becoming a textbook for people to use.
- And in three months, six months, a year, you may wind up overdosing and dying.
- They found out about it because he wound up confessing to it.
- Quinlan had wound up somewhere other than hell.
- So first, let's talk about how we wind up thinking someone is right for us.
Examples
-
And that was how I wound up back here again.
-
If you don't pay attention to changes, you wind up working for someone else.
Academic text (1998) -
How did you wind up with this?
-
But first, let's talk about how we wound up building this thing.
-
How did Ben Affleck wind up in this place in his life?
-
You dwell on something like that, and you wind up right where he is.
Fiction book (1993) -
One thing leads to another, and he winds up in the jungles of the Amazon.
Academic text (2011) -
That's how I wound up barking up your tree this morning.
-
So in The Secret, we talk about the law of attraction... and how we need to be really careful about who we surround ourselves with... because we wind up being the average of those people.
-
After several unexpected detours, I wound up living in a city I never planned to settle in.
Synonyms
∞
2.8
To finally reach a place or situation without planning it
1
5.1
End up in a place or situation, often by chance
To finally arrive somewhere after a long or unexpected journey
How Unexpected
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to bring to an end' is partially derivable because the particle 'up' commonly marks completion and many verb + up combinations mean 'finish', so a learner familiar with that pattern may infer the meaning. However, 'wind' does not literally mean 'finish' and the specific phrasal-verb reading is a metaphorical extension that is not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so prior exposure or knowledge of the construction is usually needed.
Etymology
Wind up may come from the image of a long, winding road: if you follow many twists and turns you eventually 'wind up' in a place. That's why wind up can mean 'to end up' or 'to arrive' in a situation you did not plan.