Wend is a funny verb because we use a past tense form of it, went, all the time, but we rarely use its present tense form.
This is of course because we have no other simple past tense for the word go. We can’t say I goed to the store, or I gaed to the store (Scots), or I yode to the store (Old English), or I ging to the store (German). So, when you have gone to the store, you always went to the store.
But in the present tense go and wend aren’t used in the same way. I mean, wend is not used terribly frequently, but when it is used, my sense is that it usually suggests something more about the process of going to the goal. Go is just direct. Go, doesn’t comment on the journey at all. If someone goes somewhere it could be an uneventful straight shot on a bullet train, or a journey over crooked mountain paths to deliver the mail to remote villages.
Wend is often used with the direct object of way, as in the phrases “He wends his way” or “I wended my way.” This draws attention to the way and brings to mind expressions such as “I make my way,” or “the river winds its way”. (Wended is the contemporary simple past tense of wend because, went now belongs to go).
And the fact that wend sounds like wind (as in a winding river) makes us think of it being a winding, turning path that we wend. If someone said he wended his way somewhere, but he had come by a route straight and direct, and at a rate swift and steady, I’m not sure that would feel quite right. Anyway, it’s not a coincidence that wend and wind sound similar, they share (with the word wander, as well) an ancient root that means to turn. In fact, the German verb wenden still means to turn.
And speaking of ancient roots and modern German, wend doesn’t just exist in the past tense, or in the past; it’s still alive today. In fact, I did a Bible word search and found that though wend is never used in the 1611 King James’ Version, it does make it once into the 1975 New King James’ Version.
Therefore the people wend their way like sheep; They are in trouble because there is no shepherd. (Zechariah 10:2) (Interestingly, most modern translations use the related word wander, and the 1611 King James just uses the simple past “they went their way as a flock.”)
Anyway, if from the King James to the New King James it went from went to wend, perhaps the word isn’t wending its way to death and oblivion, but rather is wending along an upward path to being used more and more.
The Telescope 