rewind
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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rewinds,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rewound,
past participle, past
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rewinded,
past
-
rewinding
present participle
-
to wind again.
-
to wind back to or toward the beginning; reverse.
noun
-
an act or instance of rewinding.
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Recording.
-
a function of an audio or video recorder or player, as a cassette deck or DVR, that returns the audio or video incrementally to an earlier point.
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the button or other control that activates this reversing function.
-
-
a camera control or mechanism used to wind film back into a film cassette.
verb
noun
-
something rewound
-
the act of rewinding
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
rewindsimple
-
rewindssimple
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have rewoundperfect
-
has rewoundperfect
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am rewindingprogressive
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are rewindingprogressive
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is rewindingprogressive
-
have been rewindingperfect progressive
-
has been rewindingperfect progressive
Past
-
rewindedsimple
-
rewoundsimple
-
had rewoundperfect
-
was rewindingprogressive
-
were rewindingprogressive
-
had been rewindingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rewind
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:
We can’t rewind the tape without the war to see if its warning was valid.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026
The team attempted to "rewind the clock" by about 80 million years, which is how long the rock is estimated to have been exposed at the Martian surface.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 12, 2026
It was also possible to rewind livestreams from the start, and download archived clips.
From BBC ● Feb. 5, 2026
What we have the power to do is not rewind or watch all the way through, but to turn something off.
From Salon ● Jan. 25, 2026
I pause and rewind to the beginning, turning the iPad to myself The intro blares out again, a mix of drumming and a man’s deep voice saying something in Arabic.
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
As if a formidable pale index finger with a square-trimmed nail rewinds the hands.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
If a viewer rewinds during this part, Netflix wants to know why.
From Salon ● Jan. 25, 2026
There’s a confusing beat when, without warning, the film switches cities and rewinds a day.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2025
Slouching on a couch, Hesme cuts a grave figure as she rewinds a video: the message Hamlet receives from her murdered father, here projected on a large scrim.
From New York Times ● Apr. 3, 2024
Werner rewinds the resistance track and splices the wires and plugs in the radio.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
When you hit the button, you’ll be rewinded two minutes back in the stream, Twitch tells The Verge.
From The Verge ● Oct. 20, 2021
And if the clock is rewound further back, Manchester City's rebuild of the team that won the 2023 Champions League really began in January 2025 after a difficult start to that season.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
My memory rewound much farther to one of the first conventions I attended in 1996.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2024
Austin Hunter Turner died in 2017, on a night that Goodwin has rewound and replayed again and again, trying to make sense of what happened.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 29, 2024
I rewound the final beat of this week’s episode of “The Curse” immediately after first watching it, and have found myself revisiting it many times since.
From New York Times ● Dec. 1, 2023
She sat with her hands out like paddles while I unwound the skeins and rewound them into a ball.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
If this sounds like a lot of work, or unduly time-consuming, remember that it’s still a lot faster than rewinding weeks of work or a mistaken decision based on incorrect information.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
“That’s basically rewinding 10 years of demand growth.”
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 15, 2026
In response, Ubisoft shut down its R6 servers and began to work on a "roll back" - essentially rewinding the clock so any purchases made prior to Saturday could be undone.
From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025
He was too busy rewinding to break down the key moments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2025
As me and Lovey climbed out and the new people climbed in, the fast-forwarding and rewinding started all over again.
From "The Boy in the Black Suit" by Jason Reynolds
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.
