fold
Pronunciation Verb

fold (folds, present participle folding; past folded, past participle folded)

  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, Dracula Chapter 21
      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.
  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, Lvcrece (First Quarto), London: Printed by 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.
Synonyms Antonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

fold (plural folds)

  1. An act of folding.
    Synonyms: bending, creasing
  2. A bend or crease.
    Synonyms: bend, crease
    • 1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall Historie: In Ten Centuries
      mummies were shrouded in a number of folds of linen
    • Folds are most common in the rocks of mountainous regions.
  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 9780596527525), 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 9781558605695), 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: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by 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, programming) 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 9781139490603), 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.
Translations Translations Translations
  • French: pli
  • German: Faltung, Faltmanöver
  • Portuguese: dobra
Noun

fold (plural folds)

  1. A pen or enclosure for sheep or other domestic animals.
    Synonyms: enclosure, pen, penfold, pinfold
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 4”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:
      Leaps o're the fence with ease into the fold.
  2. (collective) A group of sheep or goats.
    Synonyms: flock
  3. (figuratively) Home, family.
    Synonyms: home, family
  4. (religion, Christian) 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
    • John, X, 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.
    Synonyms: 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.
  6. (obsolete) A boundary or limit.
Translations Translations Translations
  • French: bercail, sein de l’Église
  • German: Gemeinde
  • Russian: па́ства
Verb

fold (folds, present participle folding; 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: Printed [by 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.
Noun

fold (uncountable)

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



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