• (Received Pronunciation)IPA^(key):/ˈfəʊld/,[ˈfɔʊ(ɫ)d],[ˈfɒʊ(ɫ)d]
• (General American)enPR:fōld,IPA^(key):/foʊld/

  • Audio(US):

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• (New Zealand,General Australian)IPA^(key):/faʉld/,[fɒʊ(ɫ)d]
• Homophone:foaled
• Rhymes:-əʊld

The verb is fromMiddle Englishfolden, fromOld Englishfealdan, fromProto-Germanic*falþaną(“to fold”), fromProto-Indo-European*pel-(“to fold”). The noun is fromMiddle Englishfolde,falde, itself derived from the verb.

fold (third-person singular simple presentfolds,present participlefolding,simple pastfolded,past participlefoldedor(obsolete)folden)

1. (transitive) Tobend (any thinmaterial, such as paper) over so that it comes in contact with itself.
2. (transitive) To make the properarrangement (in a thin material) by bending.

   If youfold the sheets, they'll fit more easily in the drawer.

3. (transitive) Todraw orcoil (one’s arms, a snake’s body, etc.) around something so as toenclose orembrace it.
5. (transitive,cooking) Tostir (semisolid ingredients) gently, with an action as if folding over a solid.

   Fold the egg whites into the batter.

   • 8 Jan 2020, Felicity Cloake inThe Guardian,How to make the perfect gluten-free chocolate brownies – recipe

     if you want to make life really easy for yourself, may I point you in the direction of Sunflour’s recipe, whichfolds four eggs and 150g ground almonds into 500g chocolate spread.

6. (intransitive) To become folded; to form folds.

   Cardboard doesn'tfold very easily.

8. (intransitive,informal) Tofall over; tocollapse orgive way; to becrushed.

   Synonyms:buckle,cave,cave in,crumple

   The chairfolded under his enormous weight.

10. (intransitive) To give way on a point or in an argument.

    Synonyms:buckle;cave;cave in;crumple

12. (intransitive,poker) Towithdraw frombetting.

    With no hearts in the river and no chance to hit his straight, hefolded.

14. (intransitive, by extension) Towithdraw orquit in general.
16. (intransitive) Tofail, tocollapse, todisband.
18. (intransitive,business) Of a company, to cease to trade.

    The companyfolded after six quarters of negative growth.

20. (transitive) Todouble orlaytogether (one’s arms, hands, wings, etc.) so as tooverlap with each other.

    Hefolded his arms in defiance.

21. (transitive,obsolete) Toplait ormat (hair)together.
23. (transitive) Toenclose in a fold of material, toswathe,wrap up,cover,enwrap.
24. (transitive) Toenclose within folded arms, toclasp, toembrace (see alsoenfold).
    • 1897,Bram Stoker, chapter 21, inDracula, New York, N.Y.:Modern Library,→OCLC:

      He put out his arms andfolded her to his breast. And for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils. His mouth was set as steel.

25. (transitive,figuratively) Tocover up, toconceal.
    • 1594,William Shakespeare,Lucrece (First Quarto), London:[…]Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […],→OCLC:

      I will not poyſon thee with my attaint, / Norfold my fault in cleanly coin’d excuſes, / My ſable ground of ſinne I will not paint, / To hide the truth of this falſe nights abuſes.

26. (transitive,obsolete) Toensnare, tocapture.
27. (transitive,computing) To split (a line of text) across multiple lines, to obey line length limitations.

    Antonym:unfold

• (bend (thin material) over):bend,crease
• (fall over):fall over
• (give way on a point or in an argument):concede,give in,give way,yield

• unfold

• ⇒ Czech:foldovat

fold (pluralfolds)

1. An act offolding.

   Synonyms:bending,creasing

   give the bedsheets afold before putting them in the cupboard.

   After two reraises in quick succession, John realised his best option was probably afold.

   1. Any correct move inorigami.
2. That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops.
   1. Abend orcrease.

      Synonyms:bend,crease

      • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson],In Memoriam, London:Edward Moxon, […],→OCLC, Canto XXII,page37:

        […] There sat the Shadow fear’d of man;
        Who broke our fair companionship,
        ⁠And spread his mantle dark and cold;
        And wrapt thee formless in thefold,[…]

   2. Alayer, typically of folded orwrappedcloth.

      Synonym:ply

      • 1631,Francis [Bacon], “VIII. Century.”, inSylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London:[…]William Rawley […];[p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […],→OCLC, paragraph 771,page194:

        […] the AncientÆgyptian Mummies, were ſhrowded in a Number ofFolds ofLinnen, beſmeared withGummes, in manner ofSeare-Cloth;[…]

   3. Aclasp,embrace.
      • c.1602,William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London:[…]Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward] Blount, published1623,→OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

        […] the weake wanton Cupid Shall from your necke vnlooſe his amorousfould,[…]

   4. Acoil of asnake’sbody.
   5. (obsolete) Awrapping orcovering.
   6. One of thedoorleaves of a foldingdoor.
3. Agentlecurve of theground; gentlehill orvalley.
4. (geology) Thebending orcurving of one or a stack oforiginally flat andplanarsurfaces, such assedimentarystrata, as a result ofplastic (i.e.permanent)deformation.
   • 1863,James Dwight Dana,Manual of Geology:

     Thefolds are most abrupt to the eastward; to the west, they diminish in boldness, and become gentle undulations

5. (newspapers) Thedivision between the top and bottomhalves of abroadsheet:headlinesabove the fold will bereadable in anewsstand display; usuallythe fold.
   • 2007, Jennifer Niederst Robbins,Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to (X)HTML, StyleSheets, and Web Graphics, "O'Reilly Media, Inc.",→ISBN, page43:

     Newspaper editors know the importance of putting the most important information “above thefold,” that is, visible when the paper is folded and on the rack.

6. (by extension,web design) The division between the part of aweb page visible in aweb browserwindow withoutscrolling; usuallythe fold.
   • 1999, Jared M. Spool,Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide, Morgan Kaufmann,→ISBN, page77:

     For example, a story that is "page I, above the fold" is considered very important news. In web page design, thefold signifies the place at which the user has to scroll down to get more information.

7. (functional programming) Any of a family ofhigher-order functions that process adata structurerecursively to build up a value.
   • 2010, Richard Bird,Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design, Cambridge University Press,→ISBN, page168:

     It was Erik Meijer who coined the namehylomorphism to describe a computation that consists of afold after an unfold. The unfold produces a data structure and thefold consumes it.

8. (programming) Asection ofsource code that can becollapsed out of view in aneditor to aidreadability.
9. Oneindividualpart of something described asmanifold,twofold,fourfold, etc.

The noun is fromMiddle Englishfold,fald, fromOld Englishfald,falæd,falod(“fold, stall, stable, cattle-pen”), fromProto-Germanic*faludaz(“enclosure”). Akin toScotsfald,fauld(“an enclosure for livestock”), Dutchvaalt(“dung heap”),Middle Low Germanvalt, vālt(“an inclosed space, a yard”),Danishfold(“pen for herbivorous livestock”),Swedishfålla(“corral, pen, pound”).

The verb is from LateMiddle Englishfooldyn, itself derived from the noun.

fold (pluralfolds)

2. Apen orenclosure for sheep or otherdomestic animals.

   Synonyms:enclosure,pen,penfold,pinfold

   • 1667,John Milton, “Book IV”, inParadise Lost. […], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […];[a]nd by Robert Boulter […];[a]nd Matthias Walker, […],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […],1873,→OCLC:

     Leaps o're the fence with ease into thefold.

   • 1913,Robert Barr, chapter 4, inLord Stranleigh Abroad‎^[1]:

     “I came down like a wolf on thefold, didn’t I ?  Why didn’t I telephone ?  Strategy, my dear boy, strategy. This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. …”

3. Anyenclosed piece ofland belonging to afarm ormill;yard,farmyard.
4. An enclosure ordwelling generally.
5. (collective) A group ofsheep orgoats, particularly those kept in a given enclosure.

   Synonym:flock

6. (figuratively)Home,family.

   Synonyms:home,family

7. (Christianity) A churchcongregation, a group of people who adhere to a common faith and habitually attend a given church; also, the Christian church as a whole, the flock ofChrist.

   Synonyms:congregation,flock

   • 1611,The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London:[…]Robert Barker, […],→OCLC,John10:16:

     And other sheepe I haue, which are not of thisfold: them also I must bring, and they shall heare my voyce; and there shall be onefold, and one shepheard.

8. (figuratively) A group of people with shared ideas or goals or who live or work together.

   Synonyms:cohort,community

   • 2013 September 1, Phil McNulty,BBC Sport:

     Having suffered the loss of Rooney just as he had returned to thefold, Moyes' mood will not have improved as Liverpool took the lead in the third minute.

   • 2021, Angela Kuttner Botelho,German Jews and the Persistence of Jewish Identity in Conversion: Writing the Jewish Self, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG,→ISBN, page37:

     Most recently, in his ambitious 2015 book,Leaving the JewishFold, Endelman significantly enlarges his purview in both time and space to broadly survey the phenomenon of Jewish conversion from early medieval to postmodern times[…]

   • 2023 July 6,Annalena Baerbock, “Russia’s war on Ukraine has forced us in Germany to think differently about our role in the world”, inThe Guardian‎^[2],→ISSN:

     In a first phase of foreign policy, after 1945, my country sought to regain former enemies’ trust. We are forever grateful that they extended their hand to us, readmitting us into the globalfold.

fold (third-person singular simple presentfolds,present participlefolding,simple past and past participlefolded)

1. (transitive) Toconfine (animals) in a fold, topen in.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited byH[enry] Lawes,A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London:[…] [Augustine Matthews] forHvmphrey Robinson, […], published1637,→OCLC; reprinted asComus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.:Dodd, Mead & Company,1903,→OCLC:

     The star that bids the shepherdfold,
     Now the top of heaven doth hold.

   • 1900, James George Frazer,The Golden Bough, volume 3, page289:

     On the same day [Midsummer Eve] people in the Isle of Man were wont to light fires to the windward of every field, so that the smoke might pass over the corn; and theyfolded their cattle and carried blazing furze or gorse round them several times.

2. (transitive,figuratively) To include in aspiritual ‘flock’ orgroup of thesaved, etc.
3. (transitive) To placesheep on (a piece of land) in order tomanure it.

FromMiddle Englishfolde, fromOld Englishfolde(“earth, land, country, district, region, territory, ground, soil, clay”), fromProto-Germanic*fuldǭ,*fuldō(“earth, ground; field; the world”). Cognate withOld Norsefold(“earth, land, field”),Norwegian andIcelandicfold(“land, earth, meadow”).

fold (uncountable)

2. (dialectal,poetic orobsolete) TheEarth;earth;land,country.

• FLOD

• IPA^(key):/fɔl/,[fʌlˀ]
• Rhymes:-ɒl

fromOld Norsefaldr(“seam”).

fold c (singular definitefolden,plural indefinitefolder)

1. fold
2. crease
3. wrinkle

FromOld Danishfald, fromMiddle Low Germanvalde, fromOld Saxon*faled, fromProto-Germanic*faludaz.

fold c (singular definitefolden,plural indefinitefolde)

1. fold,pen

FromOld Norse-faldr.

fold n

1. multiple

Seefolde(“to fold”).

fold

1. imperative offolde

•  fold on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia^da

FromOld Norsefold.

• IPA^(key):[fɔlt]
• Rhymes:-ɔlt

fold f (genitive singularfoldar,nominative pluralfoldir)

1. (poetic)earth,ground,land

• fald,feld,vold

FromOld Englishfald,falæd,falod, fromProto-West Germanic*falud, fromProto-Germanic*faludaz.

• IPA^(key):/fɔːld/

fold (pluralfoldes)

1. Apen,enclosure, orshelter for domesticated animals.

• English:fold
• Scots:fald,fauld
• → Welsh:ffald

• “fōld,n.(1).”, inMED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.:University of Michigan,2007.

fold

1. imperative offolde

FromProto-Germanic*fuldō(“earth, ground; field; the world”).

fold f

1. (poetic)earth,land;field
   • 9th c.,Þjóðólfr of Hvinir,Ynglingatal, verse 5:

     Hitt vas fyrr, / atfold ruðu
     sverðberendr / sínum dróttni.[…]

     […]It happened before, / that the sword-bearers
     reddened theground / with [the blood of] their lord.[…]

   • 900-1100, TheAlvíssmál, verses 9 and 10:

     […]Hvé sú jǫrð heitir, / er liggr fyr alda sonum
     heimi hverjum í?
     10. Jǫrð heitir með mǫnnum,
     en með Ásumfold, / kalla vega Vanir.

     […]How is the earth named, / which lies before the sons of men,
     in each of the worlds?
     10. "Earth" it is named among men,
     but among the Æsir "Field", / the Vanir call it "Ways".

• Icelandic:fold
• ⇒ Norwegian:
  • Norwegian Bokmål:Vestfold,Østfold
  • Norwegian Nynorsk:Vestfold,Austfold,Østfold

• Zoëga, Geir T. (1910) “fold”, inA Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press; also available at theInternet Archive