fold

UK/ˈfəʊld/US/foʊld/

verbA24 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #2,674 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: folds, folded, folding

To fold something is to bend it over onto itself so one part lies on top of the other. You fold a letter into three before it goes in the envelope, fold the towels as they come out of the machine, fold your arms when you have heard enough.

The noun is the line or the layer you get from doing it — a fold in a curtain, and in geology a fold in rock, where whole hillsides of stone have been squeezed into a bend. In the kitchen fold means something gentler: you fold the flour into the eggs, turning it over slowly so the air stays in, and beating it would ruin the cake. At a card table you fold by putting your hand down and leaving the round, and a shop or a newspaper that folds has closed for good. Watch the small words that come after it: fold up, fold away, fold something in half, fold something into something else.

Definitions of fold

1verbfoldTo bend something over on itself so one part covers another.A2~50%
“Fold the map along the same lines or it will never go back in the pocket.”
- Said"Fold the napkins for me, would you? Just in half is fine."
- WrittenHe folded the letter twice and put it in the drawer he never opened.
- UsedFold the egg whites into the batter gently; do not stir.
- ContrastFold, not cut. Cutting makes two pieces; folding makes one piece smaller. cut →
- Not thisYou cannot fold a plate. Only soft or flat things fold: paper, cloth, dough.
Patternfold + noun (paper, clothes, arms) · fold sth in half / in two · fold sth into (a mixture) · a fold
synonyms: bend, double over
2nounrockA line or layer made by folding — in cloth, in paper, or in layers of rock.C1~36%
“The heavy curtain hung in deep folds.”
synonyms: crease, pleat
3verbmixTo mix an ingredient in with slow, gentle turns so that the air is not knocked out.B2~2%
“Fold the flour into the eggs a spoonful at a time.”
4verbcloseTo close down for good, said of a business, a show or a newspaper.B2~12%
“The little cinema folded after ninety years.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 140 sentences found in the wild and placed 71 of them on a sense (69 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Remember it

F-OLD → G-OLD, a bar of GOLD

A bar of gold lies flat on the table, soft as paper. You bring one end over onto the other, press the line down with your thumb, and drop it in your pocket.

hooks ontogold

Phrases it lives in

return to the fold — come back to a group or a way of life you had left
fold your arms — cross them over your chest, often to show you are not moving

Also practised as

nounA bend pressed into layers of rock.

Where it comes from

Two old words landed on the same spelling. The one you do to paper is Old English fealdan, from a root that meant nothing else but fold. The other is Old English falod, a pen for animals — that is the fold sheep are driven into at dusk, and the one you return to when you come back to the fold. English kept both and stopped telling them apart.

Proto-Indo-European
*pel- — to fold
Proto-Germanic
*falþaną — to fold
Proto-West Germanic
*falþan
Old English
fealdan
Middle English
folden
English, today
fold

The verb is from Middle English folden, from Old English fealdan, from Proto-West Germanic falþan, from Proto-Germanic falþaną (“to fold”), from Proto-Indo-European pel- (“to fold”). Cognate with Dutch vouwen, German falten. The noun is from Middle English folde, falde, itself derived from the verb.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen, Clothes & Fashion, Everyday Verbs, A Man Called Ove, Games & Toys, Cleaning & Housework

First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

fold in the wild

The level beyond the fold is the fold class, which describes a rough topology of the protein.
Protein superfamily
Around one-fifth of Canadian couples are in common-law relationships, a three-fold increase from 1981, according to 2016 data from Statistics Canada.
Common-law relationships in Canada
Poplin (formerly SudShare) is an American company which allows people to hire independent contractors to wash, dry, fold, and deliver laundry.
Poplin (company)
In 2019, there were 2500 mosques in the country, a number which increased 37-fold since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Islam in Kazakhstan
The league existed for seven seasons, folding in 1905 and was itself replaced by the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association (ECAHA).
Canadian Amateur Hockey League

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the fealdan family

fold folder

fold — used about once every 383 pages · #2,674 · point at the bar for the others

Definitions of fold

1verbfoldTo bend something over on itself so one part covers another.A2~50%

“Fold the map along the same lines or it will never go back in the pocket.”

Said"Fold the napkins for me, would you? Just in half is fine."
WrittenHe folded the letter twice and put it in the drawer he never opened.
UsedFold the egg whites into the batter gently; do not stir.
ContrastFold, not cut. Cutting makes two pieces; folding makes one piece smaller. cut →
Not thisYou cannot fold a plate. Only soft or flat things fold: paper, cloth, dough.

Patternfold + noun (paper, clothes, arms) · fold sth in half / in two · fold sth into (a mixture) · a fold

synonyms: bend, double over

2nounrockA line or layer made by folding — in cloth, in paper, or in layers of rock.C1~36%

“The heavy curtain hung in deep folds.”

synonyms: crease, pleat

3verbmixTo mix an ingredient in with slow, gentle turns so that the air is not knocked out.B2~2%

“Fold the flour into the eggs a spoonful at a time.”

4verbcloseTo close down for good, said of a business, a show or a newspaper.B2~12%

“The little cinema folded after ninety years.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 140 sentences found in the wild and placed 71 of them on a sense (69 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.