Word.ws English Dictionary

have the wind up

have the wind up verb: to be frightened or disturbed.

Verb

have the wind up (third-person singular simple present has the wind up, present participle having the wind up, simple past and past participle had the wind up)

  1. (UK, idiomatic) To be frightened or disturbed.

Forms of have the wind up

third-person singular presenthas the wind up
present participlehaving the wind up
past participlehad the wind up
pasthad the wind up

Questions about have the wind up

What does have the wind up mean?
Have the wind up means to be frightened or disturbed.
What part of speech is have the wind up?
Have the wind up is a verb.
What is the past tense of have the wind up?
The past tense of have the wind up is had the wind up.

Words near have the wind up in the dictionary

  1. have the right time
  2. have the run of
  3. have the sun in one's eyes
  4. have the tiger by the tail
  5. have the time
  6. have the wind up
  7. have the wolf by the ear
  8. have the world by the bag
  9. have the world by the balls
  10. have the world by the neck
  11. have the world by the nuts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have 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: “have the wind up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/have_the_wind_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.