I. noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Berg tapped into the unpalatable side of public opinion, becoming addicted to verbal wind-ups and hostility with fatal results.
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It should have been there by now and its non-appearance is a real wind-up .
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It was a hell of an elaborate plan just for a wind-up .
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It wasn't that I minded Fenella and I could have had fun doing a wind-up on her parents.
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Perhaps it was a wind-up , he thought.
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What if all this was merely a wind-up ?
II. adjective
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Directly in front of him were two wind-up monkeys, one with a tambourine and the other with a drum.
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Estimates show that by the wind-up stage, the corporation would be left with just over 1,900 houses.
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I hang up, feeling like a wind-up toy.
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If he were a wind-up toy, he would run in an engaging curve backward.
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Not even for a wind-up gramophone.
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She was a wind-up putting-away doll, clicking through its programmed movements.
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Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only with the electric clocks, but the wind-up kind, too.
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The wind-up speech for the Government was made by John Nott.