overwinds

Verb

overwind (third-person singular simple present overwinds, present participle overwinding, simple past and past participle overwound)

1. (transitive) To wind (tighten a spring of) something excessively.
   • People also come in full of misgivings about "overwinding" their watches. "You can't overwind a watch - you can only underwind it," said McKelvey.1989 July 4, Jacquin Sanders, “What makes a watchmaker tick?”, in St. Petersburg Times
2. (intransitive) To twist (itself) more tightly.
   • DNA's helical structure implies that twisting and stretching should be coupled, hence the prediction that DNA should unwind when stretched […] That is why it was such surprise when we directly measured twist-stretch coupling to find instead DNA overwinds when stretched.2006 August 7, “Surprise Finding for Stretched DNA. [summary]”, in Ascribe Higher Education News Service

See all 5 meanings of overwind