Other forms: unwinding, unwinds
To unwind is to relax, or to undo something that was wound up. Unwind after work, unwind the cable, time to unwind.
The relaxing sense is much the commoner: unwinding is what people do after a long day, and it implies tension gradually released rather than a switch thrown. The literal sense covers cable, thread and springs. In finance, to unwind a position is to close it out gradually. Note that the past is unwound, and that unwinding a mechanism too fast is how clocks are broken.
1verbrelaxTo relax after tension or effort.
“On holiday, it took me three days to really unwind and stop checking my emails.”
2verbunwindTo undo something wound up.
“Unwind the hose from the reel before you turn on the tap.”
unwind is a relaxing or undoing.
Old English unwindan is un- plus wind, and Dutch ontwinden is built the same way. The relaxing sense is a metaphor from a spring, and only about a century old.
Proto-Germanic
*andawindaną — to unwind
Old English
unwindan — to unwind; unwrap
Middle English
unwinden
English, today
unwind
From Middle English unwinden, from Old English unwindan (“to unwind; unwrap”), from Proto-Germanic andawindaną (“to unwind”); equivalent to un + wind. Cognate with Dutch ontwinden (“to unwind”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA