overwind
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Etymology
Origin of overwind
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It will overwind and form a loop by crossing over DNA chains, tightening the structure.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 11, 2024
My job is to admire it, not overwind it.
From New York Times ● Oct. 10, 2018
This required a large number of turns of the winding key, but not much force per turn, and it was possible to overwind and break the watch.
From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 2015
When Will was little, his dad used to let him wind it up, pulling out the tiny stem and turning the metal knob, careful never to overwind.
From "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" by Nora Raleigh Baskin
“It’s how my father taught me. If I don’t wind it consistently, it won’t keep time as well. And if I overwind it, the mainspring might break.”
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
In the case of DNA, if this overwinding is not dealt with, essential processes such as copying DNA and cell division grind to a halt.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 11, 2024
It's long been known that DNA gyrase plays a role in untangling the overwinding, but the details were not clear.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 11, 2024
Among the safety appliances which are to be found in the Mining Section of the Inventions Exhibition is a model of an ingenious contrivance for the prevention of overwinding, the joint patent of Mr. W.T.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 by Various
Figure 40.—Geneva stop mechanism first used in Geneva watches to prevent overwinding.
From Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt by Ferguson, Eugene S.
There was a disconnecting apparatus, so that the contraction due to a fall of temperature produced no effect, and there was a similar arrangement to prevent overwinding.
From The Seven Follies of Science [2nd ed.] A popular account of the most famous scientific impossibilities and the attempts which have been made to solve them. by Phin, John
When Promoter Ingersoll overwound and broke his financial mainspring in the early '20s, Waterbury bought his name and took over marketing of the Ingersoll watch.
From Time Magazine Archive
The fingers remain like coiled springs; the man, too, is tense and overwound.
From Time Magazine Archive
My throat feels raw, like I was breathing through my mouth all night, and my heart whirs like an overwound motor on a toy car.
From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed
Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.
From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A watch will tell the time of day, Or tell it nearly, any way, Excepting when it's overwound, Or when you drop it on the ground.
From The Home Book of Verse — Volume 1 by Stevenson, Burton Egbert
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
