Verb

fold (third-person singular simple present folds, present participle folding, simple past folded, past participle folded or (obsolete) folden)Category:English lemmas#FOLDCategory:English verbs#FOLDCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

1. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To bend (any thin material, such as paper) over so that it comes in contact with itself.
2. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To make the proper arrangement (in a thin material) by bending.

   If you fold the sheets, they'll fit more easily in the drawer.Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

3. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To draw or coil (one’s arms, a snake’s body, etc.) around something so as to enclose or embrace it.
5. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD, cookingCategory:en:Cooking#FOLD) To stir (semisolid ingredients) gently, with an action as if folding over a solid.

   Fold the egg whites into the batter.

   Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

   • 8 Jan 2020, Felicity Cloake in The 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, which folds four eggs and 150g ground almonds into 500g chocolate spread.

6. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#FOLD) To become folded; to form folds.

   Cardboard doesn't fold very easily.Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

8. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#FOLD, informalCategory:English informal terms#FOLD) To fall over; to collapse or give way; to be crushed.

   Synonyms: buckleCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD, caveCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD, cave inCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD, crumpleCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD

   The chair folded under his enormous weight.

   Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

10. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#FOLD) To give way on a point or in an argument.

    Synonyms: buckleCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD; caveCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD; cave inCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD; crumpleCategory:English links with manual fragments#FOLD

12. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#FOLD, pokerCategory:en:Poker#FOLD) To withdraw from betting.

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

    Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

14. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#FOLD, by extension) To withdraw or quit in general.
16. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#FOLD) To fail, to collapse, to disband.
18. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#FOLD, businessCategory:en:Business#FOLD) Of a company, to cease to trade.

    The company folded after six quarters of negative growth.

    Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

20. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To double or lay together (one’s arms, hands, wings, etc.) so as to overlap with each other.

    He folded his arms in defiance.

    Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

21. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#FOLD) To plait or mat (hair) together.
23. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To enclose in a fold of material, to swathe, wrap up, cover, enwrap.
24. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To enclose within folded arms, to clasp, to embrace (see also enfold).
    • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC:

      He put out his arms and folded 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.

      Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

25. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD, figuratively) To cover up, to conceal.
    • 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:

      I will not poyſon thee with my attaint, / Nor fold 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.

      Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

26. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#FOLD) To ensnare, to capture.
27. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD, computingCategory:en:Computing#FOLD) To split (a line of text) across multiple lines, to obey line length limitations.

    Antonym: unfold

Noun

fold (plural folds)Category:English lemmas#FOLDCategory:English nouns#FOLDCategory:English countable nouns#FOLDCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

1. An act of folding.

   Synonyms: bending, creasing

   give the bedsheets a fold before putting them in the cupboard.Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

   After two reraises in quick succession, John realised his best option was probably a fold.Category:English terms with usage examples#FOLD

   1. Any correct move in origami.
2. That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops.
   1. A bend or crease.

      Synonyms: bend, crease

      • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 37:

        […] 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 the fold, […]

        Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   2. A layer, typically of folded or wrapped cloth.

      Synonym: ply

      • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “VIII. Century.”, in Sylua 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, page 194:

        […] the Ancient Ægyptian Mummies, were ſhrowded in a Number of Folds of Linnen, beſmeared with Gummes, in manner of Seare-Cloth; […]

        Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   3. A clasp, embrace.
      • c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

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

        Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   4. A coil of a snake’s body.
   5. (obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#FOLD) A wrapping or covering.
   6. One of the doorleaves of a folding door.
3. A gentle curve of the ground; gentle hill or valley.
4. (geologyCategory:en:Geology#FOLD) The bending or curving of one or a stack of originally flat and planar surfaces, such as sedimentary strata, as a result of plastic (i.e. permanent) deformation.
   • 1863, James Dwight Dana, Manual of Geology:

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

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
5. (newspapersCategory:en:Newspapers#FOLD) The division between the top and bottom halves of a broadsheet: headlines above the fold will be readable in a newsstand display; usually the fold.
   • 2007, Jennifer Niederst Robbins, Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to (X)HTML, StyleSheets, and Web Graphics, "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", →ISBN, page 43:

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

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

6. (by extension, web designCategory:en:Web design#FOLD) The division between the part of a web page visible in a web browser window without scrolling; usually the fold.
   • 1999, Jared M. Spool, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide, Morgan Kaufmann, →ISBN, page 77:

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

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

7. (functional programmingCategory:en:Programming#FOLD) Any of a family of higher-order functions that process a data structure recursively to build up a value.
   • 2010, Richard Bird, Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 168:

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

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

8. (programmingCategory:en:Programming#FOLD) A section of source code that can be collapsed out of view in an editor to aid readability.
9. One individual part of something described as manifold, twofold, fourfold, etc.

Noun

fold (plural folds)Category:English lemmas#FOLDCategory:English nouns#FOLDCategory:English countable nouns#FOLDCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

2. A pen or enclosure for sheep or other domestic animals.

   Synonyms: enclosure, pen, penfold, pinfold

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

     Leaps o're the fence with ease into the fold.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎:

     “I came down like a wolf on the fold, 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. …”

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

3. Any enclosed piece of land belonging to a farm or mill; yard, farmyard.
4. An enclosure or dwelling generally.
5. (collectiveCategory:English collective nouns#FOLD) A group of sheep or goats, particularly those kept in a given enclosure.

   Synonym: flock

6. (figuratively) Home, family.

   Synonyms: home, family

7. (ChristianityCategory:en:Christianity#FOLD) A church congregation, 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 of Christ.

   Synonyms: congregation, flock; see also Thesaurus:laity

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 10:16:

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

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

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 the fold, Moyes' mood will not have improved as Liverpool took the lead in the third minute.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   • 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, page 37:

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

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   • 2023 July 6, Annalena Baerbock, “Russia’s war on Ukraine has forced us in Germany to think differently about our role in the world”, in The Guardian‎, →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 global fold.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   • 2025 June 7, Edward Helmore, quoting JD Vance, “Trump warns Musk of ‘very serious consequences’ if he backs Democrats”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     “I hope that eventually Elon comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear,” the vice-president said.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

Verb

fold (third-person singular simple present folds, present participle folding, simple past and past participle folded)Category:English lemmas#FOLDCategory:English verbs#FOLDCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

1. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To confine (animals) in a fold, to pen in.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (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 shepherd fold,
     Now the top of heaven doth hold.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

   • 1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 3, page 289:

     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 they folded their cattle and carried blazing furze or gorse round them several times.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FOLD

2. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD, figuratively) To include in a spiritual ‘flock’ or group of the saved, etc.
3. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#FOLD) To place sheep on (a piece of land) in order to manure it.

Noun

fold (uncountable)Category:English lemmas#FOLDCategory:English nouns#FOLDCategory:English uncountable nouns#FOLDCategory:English uncountable nouns#FOLDCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

2. (dialectalCategory:English dialectal terms#FOLD, poeticCategory:English poetic terms#FOLD or obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#FOLD) The Earth; earth; land, country.

Noun

fold c (singular definite folden, plural indefinite folder)Category:Danish lemmas#FOLDCategory:Danish nouns#FOLDCategory:Danish entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Danish common-gender nouns#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

1. fold
2. crease
3. wrinkle

Noun

fold c (singular definite folden, plural indefinite folde)Category:Danish lemmas#FOLDCategory:Danish nouns#FOLDCategory:Danish entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Danish common-gender nouns#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

1. fold, pen

Noun

fold nCategory:Danish lemmas#FOLDCategory:Danish nouns#FOLDCategory:Danish entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Danish neuter nouns#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

1. multiple

Verb

foldCategory:Danish non-lemma forms#FOLDCategory:Danish verb forms#FOLDCategory:Danish entries with incorrect language header#FOLDCategory:Pages with entries#FOLDCategory:Pages with 6 entries#FOLD

1. imperative of folde

Declension

Descendants

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

References

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

Declension

Descendants

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