fold

present singular third person folds · participle present folding · past folded · participle past folded · obsolete participle past folden

1. transitiveTo bend (any thin material, such as paper) over so that it comes in contact with itself.

   The newspaper was folded under his arm.

   1 more example

   Next, fold the paper over, so the right half is on top of the left half.

   Synonyms: bend, crease

2. transitiveTo make the proper arrangement (in a thin material) by bending.

   The clothes were folded by the housekeeper.

   1 more example

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

3. transitiveTo draw or coil (one’s arms, a snake’s body, etc.) around something so as to enclose or embrace it.
4. transitivecookingTo stir (semisolid ingredients) gently, with an action as if folding over a solid.

   Fold the egg whites into the batter.

   1 more example

   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.

5. intransitiveTo become folded; to form folds.

   Cardboard doesn't fold very easily.

6. informalintransitiveTo fall over; to collapse or give way; to be crushed.

   The chair folded under his enormous weight.

   Synonyms: buckle, cave, cave in, crumple, fall over

7. intransitivetransitiveTo give way on a point or in an argument.

   He folded that point and didn't bring it up again.

   1 more example

   He kept saying it was my fault, but when I brought up Sausalito, he folded.

   Synonyms: buckle, cave, cave in, crumple, concede, give in, give way, yield

8. intransitivecard gamesTo withdraw from betting.
9. intransitiveboard gamesTo abandon completing one's hand and play in a defensive manner to avoid dealing in.

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

10. broadlyintransitiveTo withdraw or quit in general.
11. intransitiveTo fail, to collapse, to disband.
12. intransitivebusinessOf a company, to cease to trade.

    The company folded after six quarters of negative growth.

13. transitiveTo double or lay together (one’s arms, hands, wings, etc.) so as to overlap with each other.

    He folded his arms in defiance.

14. obsoletetransitiveTo plait or mat (hair) together.
15. transitiveTo enclose in a fold of material, to swathe, wrap up, cover, enwrap.
16. transitiveTo enclose within folded arms, to clasp, to embrace (see also enfold).

    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.

    1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC

17. figurativelytransitiveTo cover up, to conceal.

    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.

    1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC

18. obsoletetransitiveTo ensnare, to capture.
19. transitivecomputingTo split (a line of text) across multiple lines, to obey line length limitations.

    Antonyms: unfold

plural folds

1. An act of folding.

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

   1 more example

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

   Synonyms: bending, creasing

   1. Any correct move in origami.

      Synonyms: bending, creasing

2. That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops.
   1. A bend or crease.

      […] 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, […]

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

      Synonyms: bend, crease

   2. A layer, such as of folded or wrapped cloth.

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

      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

      Synonyms: ply

   3. A clasp, embrace.

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

      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]

   4. A coil of a snake’s body.
   5. One of the doorleaves of a folding door.
   6. A gentle curve of the ground; gentle hill or valley.
   7. journalismThe division between the top and bottom halves of a broadsheet: headlines above the fold will be readable in a newsstand display; usually the fold.

      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.

      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

   8. broadlycomputingThe division between the part of a web page visible in a web browser window without scrolling; usually the fold.

      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.

      1999, Jared M. Spool, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide, Morgan Kaufmann, →ISBN, page 77

   9. geographyThe 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.

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

      1863, James Dwight Dana, Manual of Geology

   10. obsoleteA wrapping or covering.
3. functional programmingAny of a family of higher-order functions that process a data structure recursively to build up a value.

   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.

   2010, Richard Bird, Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 168

4. computingA section of source code that can be collapsed out of view in an editor to aid readability.
5. One individual part of something described as manifold, twofold, fourfold, etc.

plural folds

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

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

   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

   Synonyms: enclosure, pen, penfold, pinfold

2. Any enclosed piece of land belonging to a farm or mill; yard, farmyard.
3. An enclosure or dwelling generally.
4. collectiveA group of sheep or goats, particularly those kept in a given enclosure.

   Synonyms: flock

5. figurativelyHome, family.

   Synonyms: home, family

6. ChristianityA 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.

   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.

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

   3 more examples

   Ten folds of sheep, with shepherds presiding over each, encompassed the fountain; and every shaded spot the neighborhood afforded, was already encamped over by Arvah of Gilboa, who had been holding his sheep-shearing in this valley for the last three days. Arvah, who himself presided as chief shepherd of his flocks, was at this time engaged in calling his sheep one by one out of the fold.

   1835, N. W. Oliver, Thaddeus Mason Harris, Sephora, C. Harris, page 176

   The obverse side of the coin in essence is "You who do not belong to my fold of sheep cannot believe my good shepherd claim or the other 'I AM' claims I have made."

   2013, Willard M. Swartley, John, MennoMedia

   However, of the Jews constituted only the first fold of sheep for whom Jesus came and despite any schism, the Jews are of Jesus' sheep who have been rightly gathered into His fold. There yet is another fold constituting also of the sons of Father Abraham who as sheep must be gathered again together into the one fold.

   2012, Aden John, The Last Avatar of Jesus the Christ, AuthorHouse UK

   Synonyms: congregation, flock, congregation, flock, laity

7. figurativelyA group of people with shared ideas or goals or who live or work together.

   “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.

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

   3 more examples

   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.

   2013 September 1, Phil McNulty, BBC Sport

   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 […]

   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

   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.

   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

   Synonyms: cohort, community

present singular third person folds · participle present folding · participle past folded · past folded

1. transitiveTo confine (animals) in a fold, to pen in.

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

   Comus

   1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [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

   1 more example

   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.

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

2. figurativelytransitiveTo include in a spiritual ‘flock’ or group of the saved, etc.
3. transitiveTo place sheep on (a piece of land) in order to manure it.

1. dialectalpoeticuncountableotherwise obsoleteThe Earth; earth; land; country.