fold

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

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

From Middle English folden, from Old English fealdan, from Proto-Germanic *falþaną (“to fold”), from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to fold”).

fold (third-person singular simple present folds, present participle folding, simple past folded, past participle folded or (obsolete) folden)

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

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

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

   Cardboard doesn't fold very easily.

4. (intransitive, informal) To fall over; to be crushed.

   The chair folded under his enormous weight.

5. (transitive) To enclose within folded arms (see also enfold).
   • 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 21, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, OCLC 688657546:

     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.

6. (intransitive) To give way on a point or in an argument.
7. (intransitive, poker) To withdraw from betting.

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

8. (intransitive, by extension) To withdraw or quit in general.
9. (transitive, cooking) To stir gently, with a folding action.

   Fold the egg whites into the batter.

   • 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.

10. (intransitive, business) Of a company, to cease to trade.

    The company folded after six quarters of negative growth.

11. To double or lay together, as the arms or the hands.

    He folded his arms in defiance.

12. To cover or wrap up; to conceal.
    • 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], OCLC 236076664:

      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.

• (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 (plural folds)

1. An act of folding.

   give the bedsheets a fold before putting them in the cupboard.

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

   Synonyms: bending, creasing

2. A bend or crease.

   Synonyms: bend, crease

   • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, 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 1044372886:

     mummies were shrouded in a number of folds of linen

   • 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

3. Any correct move in origami.
4. (newspapers) 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.

5. (by extension, web design) 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.

6. That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops; embrace.
   • c. 1602, 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 606515358, [Act III, scene iii]:

     Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold.

7. (geology) 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.
8. (computing theory) In functional programming, 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.

9. (programming) A section of source code that can be collapsed out of view in an editor to aid readability.
   • 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 […]

From Middle English fold, fald, from Old English fald, falæd, falod (“fold, stall, stable, cattle-pen”), from Proto-Germanic *faludaz (“enclosure”). Akin to Scots fald, fauld (“an enclosure for livestock”), Dutch vaalt (“dung heap”), Middle Low German valt, vālt (“an inclosed space, a yard”), Danish fold (“pen for herbivorous livestock”), Swedish fålla (“corral, pen, pound”).

fold (plural folds)

1. 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], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     Leaps o're the fence with ease into the 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. …”

2. (collective) A group of sheep or goats.

   Synonym: flock

3. (figuratively) Home, family.

   Synonyms: home, family

4. (Christianity) A church congregation, a group of people who adhere to a common faith and habitually attend a given church; the Christian church as a whole, the flock of Christ.

   Synonyms: congregation, flock

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, John 10:16:

     Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.

5. A group of people with shared ideas or goals or who live or work together.

   Synonym: cohort

   • 2013, Phil McNulty, "", BBC Sport, 1 September 2013:

     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.

fold (third-person singular simple present folds, present participle folding, simple past and past participle folded)

1. To confine animals in a fold.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], H[enry] Lawes, editor, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, OCLC 228715864; 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 1113942837:

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

From Middle English folde, from Old English folde (“earth, land, country, district, region, territory, ground, soil, clay”), from Proto-Germanic *fuldǭ, *fuldō (“earth, ground; field; the world”). Cognate with Old Norse fold (“earth, land, field”), Norwegian and Icelandic fold (“land, earth, meadow”).

fold (uncountable)

1. (dialectal, poetic or obsolete) The Earth; earth; land, country.

• FLOD

• IPA^(key): /fɔl/, [fʌlˀ]
• Rhymes: -ɒl

from Old Norse faldr (“seam”).

fold c (singular definite folden, plural indefinite folder)

1. fold
2. crease
3. wrinkle

From Old Danish fald, from Middle Low German valde, from Old Saxon *faled, from Proto-Germanic *faludaz.

fold c (singular definite folden, plural indefinite folde)

1. fold, pen

From Old Norse -faldr.

fold n

1. multiple

See folde (“to fold”).

fold

1. imperative of folde

• fold on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da

From Old Norse fold.

• IPA^(key): [fɔlt]
• Rhymes: -ɔlt

fold f (genitive singular foldar, nominative plural foldir)

1. (poetic) earth, ground, land

• fald, feld, vold

From Old English fald, falæd, falod, from Proto-West Germanic *falud, from Proto-Germanic *faludaz.

• IPA^(key): /fɔːld/

fold (plural foldes)

1. A pen, enclosure, or shelter for domesticated animals.

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

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

fold

1. imperative of folde

From Proto-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, / at fold ruðu
     sverðberendr / sínum dróttni. […]

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

   • 900-1100, The Alvíssmál, verses 9 and 10:

     […] Hvé sú jǫrð heitir, / er liggr fyr alda sonum
     heimi hverjum í?
     10. Jǫrð heitir með mǫnnum,
     en með Ásum fold, / 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, Østfold

• “fold”, in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press