Word.ws English Dictionary

get the wind up

get the wind up verb: to become frightened or disturbed.

Verb

get the wind up (third-person singular simple present gets the wind up, present participle getting the wind up, simple past got the wind up, past participle got the wind up or gotten the wind up)

  1. (UK, idiomatic) To become frightened or disturbed.
    • Mustn't answer the door, mustn't touch the telephone, mustn't stir out of the house—I ask you now, George, what's likely to be the end of this sort of thing when her people get the wind up?1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London

Forms of get the wind up

third-person singular presentgets the wind up
present participlegetting the wind up
pastgot the wind up
past participlegot the wind up
past participlegotten the wind up

Questions about get the wind up

What does get the wind up mean?
Get the wind up means to become frightened or disturbed.
What part of speech is get the wind up?
Get the wind up is a verb.
What is the past tense of get the wind up?
The past tense of get the wind up is got the wind up.

Words near get the wind up in the dictionary

  1. get the show on the road
  2. get the thumb
  3. get the vapors
  4. get the vapours
  5. get the wall
  6. get the wind up
  7. get the word out
  8. get the worst of it
  9. get the wrong idea
  10. get thee behind me
  11. get there

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get the wind up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-get the wind up.ogg.

Cite this entry: “get the wind up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/get_the_wind_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.