wind up — provoke deliberately
phrasal verbC1IELTS 7+informaloccasional
to deliberately tease, annoy, or provoke someone, often in a playful or irritating way.
Say it like a native
Textbook He was deliberately provoking his sister for amusement.
Native He was just winding his sister up.
'Wind up' (BrE) is the everyday verb for teasing or provoking someone; 'deliberately provoking for amusement' is formal.
Pattern: wind someone up
In use
- He loves to wind his little sister up by hiding her toys.interpersonal
- While some people enjoy winding others up as a form of humour, this behaviour can easily cross the line and cause genuine irritation.IELTS speaking
Common mistake
✗ Stop winding up me.
✓ Stop winding me up.
With a pronoun, the object goes in the middle: 'wind me up'.
Common collocations
wind up + person— me up, your brother, on purpose, just to annoy
Don't confuse it
This sense is different from 'wind up' meaning 'finish something' (B1) or 'end up in a situation' (B2). Here, the focus is on provoking or teasing a person, not ending or arriving somewhere.
Related
- wind up (finish something) — 'wind up' also has the more basic meaning 'finish something'; this is the advanced sense.