# rewind

/ˈɹiwaɪnd/ (US)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/rewind
Updated: 2026-08-27

## Senses

### 2. figurative time travel

verb · CEFR B2 · Informal

to go back or think back to a time in the past.

For teachers: to mentally or narratively return to a previous point in time or a previous stage of a conversation.

- Let's rewind for a second and look at what happened before the accident.
- If I could rewind to the start of the year, I would have made very different investment choices.

Teaching tip: Commonly used in meetings or storytelling to clarify a point that was missed earlier.

### 3. to wind again

verb · CEFR C1 · Technical

to wind something up a second time.

For teachers: to wind a physical object, such as a spring or a spool, again.

- The technician had to rewind the copper coil to fix the motor.
- After the spring snapped, the clockmaker had to carefully rewind the mechanism to ensure the tension was correct.

### 4. the act or button

noun · CEFR B1

the act of going back in a recording, or the button you press to do it.

For teachers: the function, mechanism, or act of reversing media playback.

- I missed that last sentence; can you give it a quick rewind?
- The remote control was so worn that the rewind button no longer responded to touch.

## Examples

- Can you rewind the video so I can see that part again?
- The teacher had to rewind the recording several times because the audio quality was poor and the students couldn't understand the dialogue.
- In the digital age, the physical act of rewinding has been replaced by instant seeking, yet the terminology persists as a linguistic relic of the era of magnetic tape.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.