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unwind

verb · noun

Simple meaning

Become less tense, rest, or take one's ease.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

uhnwynd

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ənˈwaɪnd

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. intransitivecolloquial

    To relax; to chill out; to rest and become relieved of stress

  2. Become less tense, rest, or take one's ease

  3. intransitive

    To be or become unwound; to be capable of being unwound or untwisted.

  4. transitive

    To separate (something that is wound up)

  5. Separate the tangles of

  6. transitivefigurative

    To unravel or explain.

noun

  1. Any mechanism or operation that unwinds something.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To relax; to chill out; to rest and become relieved of stress

Used this way, unwind is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Casual
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Playful
Usage feel
Casual and conversational

Where it naturally appears

  • Everyday conversation
  • Social media/informal writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use unwind

  • “Unwind a ball of yarn.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

unwind afterunwind beforeslowly unwindstrands unwind

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • relax

    To rest and become relieved of stress.

  • loosen up

    To become loose; to loosen; to relax (a muscle, etc.).

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: any mechanism or operation that unwinds something

roll

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.