fold

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See also: -fold, föld, and Föld

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

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

Verb[edit]

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, 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: […] 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[edit]
Antonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from fold (verb)
Descendants[edit]
  • ⇒ Czech: foldovat
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun[edit]

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: […] VVilliam 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.
  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 […]
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Etymology 2[edit]

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”).

Noun[edit]

fold (plural folds)

  2. 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: […] [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[1]:
      “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. …”
  3. (collective) A group of sheep or goats.
    Synonym: flock
  4. (figuratively) Home, family.
    Synonyms: home, family
  5. (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
  6. A group of people with shared ideas or goals or who live or work together.
    Synonym: cohort
    • 2013, Phil McNulty, "[2]", 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.
Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

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

  1. To confine animals in a fold.

Etymology 3[edit]

From Middle English, 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”).

Noun[edit]

fold (uncountable)

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

Anagrams[edit]

Danish[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

from Old Norse faldr (“seam”).

Noun[edit]

fold c (singular definite folden, plural indefinite folder)

  1. fold
  2. crease
  3. wrinkle
Inflection[edit]
Declension of fold
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative fold folden folder folderne
genitive folds foldens folders foldernes

Etymology 2[edit]

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

Noun[edit]

fold c (singular definite folden, plural indefinite folde)

  1. fold, pen
Inflection[edit]
Declension of fold
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative fold folden folde foldene
genitive folds foldens foldes foldenes

Etymology 3[edit]

From Old Norse -faldr

Noun[edit]

fold n

  1. multiple

Etymology 4[edit]

See folde (“to fold”).

Verb[edit]

fold

  1. imperative of folde

See also[edit]

Icelandic[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Norse fold.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

fold f (genitive singular foldar, nominative plural foldir)

  1. (poetic) earth, ground, land

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Verb[edit]

fold

  1. imperative of folde

Old Norse[edit]

Etymology[edit]

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

Noun[edit]

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".

Declension[edit]

  Declension of fold (strong ō-stem, ar and ir-plurals)
feminine singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative fold foldin foldar, foldir foldarnar, foldirnar
accusative fold foldina foldar, foldir foldarnar, foldirnar
dative fold, foldu foldinni foldum foldunum
genitive foldar foldarinnar folda foldanna

Descendants[edit]

References[edit]

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