Its spring is wound for half a minute, and then unwinds over six minutes, charging a battery.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

The spring is wound for half a minute, and then unwinds over six minutes, charging a battery in the process, and providing enough energy to run the radio for an hour. (This means the radio's spring-controller circuit is no longer necessary.) Thus, Freeplay has switched from making solely spring-powered devices to making battery-powered devices that are equipped with a clockwork mechanism for recharging and emergency use.

ECONOMIST: Clockwork technology

It crouched there, a tightly wound spring scanning the horizon for prey, all lean muscle, tense sinews against the roiling clouds.

BBC: The Serengeti in the off-season

This torch works by storing energy in a hand-wound spring, and then using that energy to drive a dynamo.

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Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies.

FORBES: The World of Clockwork Robots

The watch has a four-barrel power plant (is this beginning to sound like a Pontiac GTO?) in which one spring, on being wound down, transfers control to the next.

FORBES: Time Is Money

Diana Levine went to the hospital with a headache one spring day in 2000 and wound up losing an arm.

FORBES: Can you sue a company for a product the feds approved?

After less than a year, the two sides wound up suing each other last spring.

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