overwound

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of overwind

comparative more overwound · superlative most overwound

1. figurativelyuncommonNervous, tense, jumpy.

   He has left his class, at least in spirit, by being in certain ways unusual; and he is still unusual in another class, too tense and overwound.

   1957, Richard Hoggart, The Uses Of Literacy

   3 more examples

   Everyone else Christian had had anything to do with, ever since the bad night outside Alexandria, had seemed to be overwound, jumpy, bitter, hysterical, overtired...

   1949, Irwin Shaw, The Young Lions

   Eric's boss had accused him more than once of being a worrier, but Eric hadn't felt this overwound since his previous employer's stock underwent a dot-bomb implosion.

   2004, Emma Holly, Strange Attractions, →ISBN, page 23

   He [Cheney] could only exist with a chief executive self-absorbed in his resentments, narrow in experience and intellectual scope, and who does not hold his vice president accountable; an incompetent national security advisor, overwound in her eagerness to please; and a secretary of state who never presses his advantages but accepts his internal defeats, playing the good soldier.

   2004 October 6, Sidney Blumenthal, “The master of Washington vs. the fox”, in Salon.com, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2008