Word.ws English Dictionary

getting the wind up

getting the wind up is the present participle and gerund of get the wind up.

Meaning of get the wind up

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

Questions about getting the wind up

What is getting the wind up the present participle and gerund of?
Getting the wind up is the present participle and gerund of get the wind up.

Words near getting the wind up in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: getting the wind up (page history and authors); 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.

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