To rewind means to make something go backwards to an earlier point. The word comes from old cassette tapes and VCRs, where you had to physically wind the tape backwards to watch or listen to something again. If you missed a funny moment in a movie, you'd hit the rewind button and the tape would spin backwards until you reached the part you wanted to see.

Today we still use rewind even though most videos and music are digital. When you're watching a show and want to see a scene again, you rewind it by dragging the progress bar backwards or tapping the screen. You might rewind a few seconds to catch a joke you missed or hear a song lyric clearly.

The word also works as a metaphor. If you could rewind time, you'd go back to an earlier moment, maybe to fix a mistake or relive a great day. When friends reminisce about a fun vacation, someone might say, “I wish we could rewind to that week!” They mean they'd like to experience it all over again.

The opposite of rewind is fast-forward, which means jumping ahead to a later point.