sb. and a. [f. the phr. to wind up, WIND v.1 22.]

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  A.  sb. The action of ‘winding up,’ or something that ‘winds up’ or concludes a course of action, story, etc.; close, conclusion, finish, dénouement; final settlement; closing act or proceeding. † Also formerly wind-up-all.

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1573.  G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 47. Whitch was the Epiphonema and as it were the windupal of that meting.

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1588.  J. Harvey, Disc. Probl., 74. Doth not the diuel, I say, in the winde-vpall, and in fine, oftner play wilie beguile him selfe?

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1665.  Bunyan, Holy Citie (1669), 266. This New Jerusalem shall be the wind-up of the world. Ibid. (1683), Greatn. Soul (1691), 56. So the wind-up of the whole will be this, They shall have like for like.

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1816.  Jane Austen, Emma, xxii. That was the wind-up of the history.

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1844.  Alb. Smith, Adv. Mr. Ledbury, xxiv. (1886), 75. Geiting through a few … quadrilles,… and Sir Roger de Coverley as a wind-up.

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1853.  Dickens, Bleak Ho., xviii. To take myself well to task, and have a regular wind-up of this business now.

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1869.  Ouseley, Counterp. Canon & Fugue, xxiii. 181. The dominant pedal always announces the termination, or ‘wind-up,’ of a fugue.

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  B.  adj. 1. Constructed to be wound up.

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1784.  Morn. Chron., 21 April, 4/3. Advt., A wind up range.

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  2.  Forming the ‘wind-up’ or conclusion of something; concluding, closing.

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1843.  Mozley, Ess. (1878), I. 25. Strafford determined not to be wanting to himself at the wind-up scene.

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1900.  ‘Mark Twain,’ Man that corrupted, etc., 153. We had a wind-up champagne supper that night.

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