Wend or wind?
wend is a verb meaning “To direct (one's way or course); pursue one's way; proceed upon some course or…”; wind is a noun meaning “Real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or…”. Use wend as a verb and wind as a noun (wind is also a verb: “To blow air through a wind instrument or horn to make a…”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) wind is about 525 times as common as wend.
What is the difference between wend and wind?
| wend | wind | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To direct (one's way or course); pursue one's way; proceed upon some course or way A member of a Slavic people from the borders of Germany and Poland; a Sorb; a Kashub A Slavic person living anywhere in the vicinity of German-speaking areas | Real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure Air artificially put in motion by any force or action To blow air through a wind instrument or horn to make a sound |
| Example | We wended our weary way westward | The wind blew through her hair as she stood on the deck of the ship |
| Forms | wends, wending, wended | winds |
| Pronunciation | /wɛnd/ /wɪ̟nd/ | /ˈwɪnd/ /ˈwaɪ̯nd/ /waɪnd/ |
| In writing | about once in every 8 million words | 69 times per million words |
Sources: wend and wind in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of wend and wind
wend
- 1
To direct (one's way or course); pursue one's way; proceed upon some course or way
We wended our weary way westward
- 2
A member of a Slavic people from the borders of Germany and Poland; a Sorb; a Kashub
- 3
A Slavic person living anywhere in the vicinity of German-speaking areas
wind
- 1
Real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure
The wind blew through her hair as she stood on the deck of the ship
- 2
To blow air through a wind instrument or horn to make a sound
- 3
To turn coils (of a cord or something similar) around something
to wind thread on a spool or into a ball
- 4
The act of winding or turning; a turn; a bend; a twist
- 5
Air artificially put in motion by any force or action
the wind of a cannon ball
- 6
To cause (someone) to become breathless, as by a blow to the abdomen, or by physical exertion, running, etc
The boxer was winded during round two
- 7
To tighten the spring of a clockwork mechanism
Please wind that old-fashioned alarm clock
- 8
The ability to breathe easily
After the second lap he was already out of wind
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, wend or wind?
wend appears about once in every 8 million words; wind 69 times per million words.
wend about once in every 8 million wordswind 69 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search wend vs wind?
“wend vs wind” is searched about 50 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“wind vs wend”, “wend or wind”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.