–Wind up | Image by wirestock on Freepik
Context
The Week JuniorIn 2024, astronaut Victor Glover will be part of the first crew to travel to the Moon in more than 50 years. As the pilot, he will fly the spaceship, named Orion, around the Moon — but Orion won’t land on the surface. “Our mission — Artemis ll — is to make sure that the Orion spacecraft is safe for the more complicated missions,” Glover told The Week Junior Science+Nature.” It’s just one step on that really long journey that is eventually going to wind up with sending the first human on to Mars.” Glover must also make sure all systems are working properly. “If that toilet breaks, we're going to have four unhappy people up there.”
Explanations and Usages
The phrase “wind up” means to reach a particular conclusion or end result after a series of actions or events. It’s used to describe where something eventually leads or concludes.
For example, if you’re telling a story about a journey and you say, “After a long adventure, they wound up at a beautiful waterfall,” it means that, after a series of events or travels, the characters eventually arrived at the waterfall.
In simpler terms, “wind up” is like describing the final stop or result of a sequence of happenings. It helps express the ultimate outcome or destination after a chain of actions or events has taken place.
Examples
- Emily’s hard work and focus in class wound up earning her a scholarship for college.
- Over the years, Christopher’s consistent dedication to his studies, combined with his active participation in extracurricular activities, ultimately wound up securing him admission to his dream university and opening doors to a myriad of educational opportunities.
–Education
- Experts hold differing perspectives about whether Artificial Intelligence will ultimately wind up destroying more jobs than it creates over time.
- The potential realization of this scenario holds great importance in assessing the Federal Reserve’s ability to achieve a stable economic transition, as it will directly impact whether they wind up achieving a controlled descent or risk repeating an error stemming from their earlier misinterpretation of the inflation issue.
–Business
- Despite careful planning, many innovative tech projects wind up facing unexpected challenges from the governments.
While a small portion of solar panels have completed their lifecycle, experts suggest that most of these panels wind up in landfills, leading to the loss of valuable metals and materials enclosed within them.
–Technology
- Most volcanic eruptions do not wind up warming the planet; on the contrary, they wind up cooling it.
Experiencing childhood trauma and abuse can lead individuals to wind up in relationships where they are vulnerable to further mistreatment and, in certain instances, to replicate abusive behaviors.
–Science
- Mozart often wound up composing music that continues to inspire musicians today.
Across history, influential artists such as Michelangelo and Frida Kahlo, through their diverse creations, have significantly shaped artistic trends, where their enduring legacies wind up influencing cultural perceptions and artistic expressions for generations to come.
–Arts and Culture
