[f. WIND v.1 + -ING2.] That winds, in various senses.
1. That follows a sinuous course, takes or has a curvilinear form, or is full of bends and turns. a. Of a staircase: Spiral. Chiefly in winding stairs (sometimes hyphened).
1530. Palsgr., 158. Vne vis, a wyndingstayre.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, s.v. Noyau, A paire of winding staires.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xxxv. 141. A round Tribunal, whereunto one ascended by fifteen winding stairs.
1679. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., ix. 153. These Winding steps are made about a solid Newel.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., I. 22. You may go up to the top by a winding staircase that is within it.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 20 July 1654. A paire of artificial winding-stayres of stone.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Builder, 191. Having finished the first flight of steps, fix the top of the first bearer for the winding-tread.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, liii. She left the chapel,… and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower, opened it, and climbed the winding stair.
b. Of plants or their parts, lines or figures, etc.
1538. Elyot, Vimineus, wyckers, wyndynge roddes, or osyars.
1545. Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 164. A payre of windynge prickes.
1552–3. in Feuillerat, Revels Edw. VI. (1914), 137. Wynding plate abowte hedd peces.
1577. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., 34. The stalke is sclender, wyndyng, with claspes about such plantes as are next hym.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 78. If his necke be winding and weake (as if it were broken).
1622. Bacon, Hen. VII., 193. It was ordained, that this Winding-Iuie of a Plantagenet, should kill the true Tree it selfe.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 184. The winding Trail Of Bears-foot.
1726. Leoni, trans. Alberti’s Archit., I. 9. Of involved winding Lines it is not necessary to speak.
1799. G. Smith, Laboratory, I. 16. Thus you may mark a winding figure with a thread on a rocket.
1822. J. Parkinson, Outl. Oryctol., 163. The chambers separated by winding septa.
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 230/2. Many of the sheep have upright winding horns.
c. Of the course or outline of natural features, roads, passages, etc.
1555. Eden, Decades, 303 b. Saylynge alonge by the coaste of a wyndynge and bendynge shore.
1591. Shaks., Two Gent., II. vii. 31. And so by many winding nookes he straies.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 618. Wy with a crooked and winding streame rolleth downe by Whitney.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., II. 691. A winding Vally. Ibid., Æneis, III. 905. Megara’s winding Bay.
1791. Cowper, Four Ages, 8. Taking my lonely winding walk, I mus’d.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xxxi. The winding mountains at length shut Udolpho from her view.
1878. J. Buller, 40 Years in N. Z., I. ii. 27. The river is winding in its course.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer, xiii. He could rattle five horses and a loaded coach in and out of the creeks and winding bush tracks.
d. Of animals or their movements.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, I. v. 20. He windes himselfe into this winding Beast, disposing the Serpents tongue to speake to the woman.
1631. Quarles, Samson, iv. 20. The suck-egge Weasell, and the Winding Swallow.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, II. 288. Twice round his waste their [sc. the serpents’] winding Volumes rowl’d.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1810), III. xii. 79. Thou … dost not know the joys of a chase, and in pursuing a winding game.
1820. Clare, Poems Rural Life, 130.
| Swallows check their winding flight, | |
| The twittering on the chimney light. |
† e. Pliant, bending. Obs. rare.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., 192. Feathers and delicat winding beds [orig. pluma & flexiles lectuli].
2. fig. † a. Tortuous, crooked, wily. Obs.
1594. Carew, Huarte’s Exam. Wits, 204. A man doubtlesse winding and craftie.
1629. H. Burton, Truth’s Tri., 241. For all his winding wit and wrangling about this place.
1655. Stanley, Hist. Philos., III. 76. Old, winding, bragging, testy, crafty fox.
1693. J. Edwards, Author. O. & N. Test., I. 245. Jupiter … was represented Horned, because of his Winding Oracles.
b. Of a narrative: Circuitous, rambling.
[a. 1596. Sir T. More, IV. v. 37. The winding laborinth of thy straunge discourse Will nere haue end.]
1887. Bowen, Virg. Æneid, I. 341. The grief is a winding story and long.
1923. Times Lit. Suppl., 4 Jan., 9/2. The long and winding narrative.
Hence Windingly adv., in a winding manner, circuitously, with twists and turns; Windingness, circuitous or meandering form.
1576. Baker, Gesner’s Jewell of Health, 215 b. The pype … doth ascende right up, and not as in the others, *windingly.
1626. T. H[awkins], trans. Caussin’s Holy Crt., 47. A riuer, that windingly creepeth with many wauy turnings.
1817. Byron, Beppo, xlii. Where the green alleys windingly allure.
1877. Blackmore, Erema, xiv. The long descent into the depth of winter is … taken … gently, and softly, and windingly, with a great many glimpses back at the summer.
1730. Bailey (fol.), Tortuousness, *Windingness or the Turning in and out.
1861. W. Barnes, in Macm. Mag., IV. 134/1. If the beautiful be good, there should be good in the stream’s windingness.
