Pronunciations (13)
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/ˈfəʊld/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
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[ˈfɒʊɫd]
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
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/ˈfɒld/
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/ˈfəwld/
Pronunciation notes
- British
- Southern
- Standard
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[ˈfɔwɫd]
Pronunciation notes
- British
- Southern
- Standard
-
/ˈfɔld/
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/foʊld/
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
- General-American
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/fəʉld/
Pronunciation notes
- Australia
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[fəʉɫd]
Pronunciation notes
- Australia
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/fɐʉld/
Pronunciation notes
- New-Zealand
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[fɐʉɫd]
Pronunciation notes
- New-Zealand
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/fold/
Pronunciation notes
- Scotland
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/fould/
Pronunciation notes
- Wales
Verb
To bend (any thin material, such as paper) over so that it comes in contact with itself.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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Next, fold the paper over, so the right half is on top of the left half.
The newspaper was folded under his arm.
To make the proper arrangement (in a thin material) by bending.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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If you fold the sheets, they'll fit more easily in the drawer.
The clothes were folded by the housekeeper.
To draw or coil (one’s arms, a snake’s body, etc.) around something so as to enclose or embrace it.
Usage- Transitive
To stir (semisolid ingredients) gently, with an action as if folding over a solid.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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Fold the egg whites into the batter.
More examples (1)
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.
To become folded; to form folds.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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Cardboard doesn't fold very easily.
To fall over; to collapse or give way; to be crushed.
Usage- Informal
- Intransitive
- Examples
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The chair folded under his enormous weight.
To give way on a point or in an argument.
Usage- Intransitive
- Transitive
- Examples
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He folded that point and didn't bring it up again.
He kept saying it was my fault, but when I brought up Sausalito, he folded.
To withdraw from betting.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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With no hearts in the river and no chance to hit his straight, he folded.
To withdraw or quit in general.
Usage- broadly
- Intransitive
To fail, to collapse, to disband.
Usage- Intransitive
Of a company, to cease to trade.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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The company folded after six quarters of negative growth.
To double or lay together (one’s arms, hands, wings, etc.) so as to overlap with each other.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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He folded his arms in defiance.
To plait or mat (hair) together.
Usage- Obsolete
- Transitive
To enclose in a fold of material, to swathe, wrap up, cover, enwrap.
Usage- Transitive
To enclose within folded arms, to clasp, to embrace (see also enfold).
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
To cover up, to conceal.
Usage- Figurative
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
To ensnare, to capture.
Usage- Obsolete
- Transitive
To split (a line of text) across multiple lines, to obey line length limitations.
Usage- Transitive
- Antonyms
Noun
An act of folding.
- Examples
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give the bedsheets a fold before putting them in the cupboard.
After two reraises in quick succession, John realised his best option for this poker hand was probably a fold.
An act of folding. Any correct move in origami.
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. A bend or crease.
- Examples
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[…] 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, […]
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. A layer, such as of of folded or wrapped cloth.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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[…] the Ancient Ægyptian Mummies, were ſhrowded in a Number of Folds of Linnen, beſmeared with Gummes, in manner of Seare-Cloth; […]
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. A clasp, embrace.
- Examples
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[…] the weake wanton Cupid Shall from your necke vnlooſe his amorous fould, […]
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. A coil of a snake’s body.
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. One of the doorleaves of a folding door.
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. A gentle curve of the ground; gentle hill or valley.
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. 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.
- Examples
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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.
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. 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. The division between the part of a web page visible in a web browser window without scrolling; usually the fold.
Usage- broadly
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. 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.
- Examples
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The folds are most abrupt to the eastward; to the west, they diminish in boldness, and become gentle undulations
That which is folded together, or which enfolds or envelops. A wrapping or covering.
Usage- Obsolete
Any of a family of higher-order functions that process a data structure recursively to build up a value.
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
A section of source code that can be collapsed out of view in an editor to aid readability.
One individual part of something described as manifold, twofold, fourfold, etc.
Noun
A pen or enclosure for sheep or other domestic animals.
- Examples
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Leaps o're the fence with ease into the fold.
Any enclosed piece of land belonging to a farm or mill; yard, farmyard.
An enclosure or dwelling generally.
A group of sheep or goats, particularly those kept in a given enclosure.
Usage- collective
- Synonyms
Home, family.
Usage- Figurative
A 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.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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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.
More examples (3)
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.
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."
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.
A group of people with shared ideas or goals or who live or work together.
Usage- Figurative
- Examples
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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.
More examples (2)
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 […]
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.
“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.
Verb
To confine (animals) in a fold, to pen in.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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The star that bids the shepherd fold, Now the top of heaven doth hold.
More examples (1)
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.
To include in a spiritual ‘flock’ or group of the saved, etc.
Usage- Figurative
- Transitive
To place sheep on (a piece of land) in order to manure it.
Usage- Transitive
Noun
The Earth; earth; land; country.
Usage- dialectal
- Poetic
- Uncountable
Noun
an angular or rounded shape made by folding
- Broader terms
- Examples
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a fold in the napkin
a crease in his trousers
More examples (3)
a plication on her blouse
a flexure of the colon
a bend of his elbow
a group of people who adhere to a common faith and habitually attend a given church
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a geological process that causes a bend in a stratum of rock
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a group of sheep or goats
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a folded part (as in skin or muscle)
- Synonyms
a pen for sheep
- Broader terms
the act of folding
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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he gave the napkins a double fold
Verb
bend or lay so that one part covers the other
- Antonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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fold up the newspaper
turn up your collar
incorporate a food ingredient into a mixture by repeatedly turning it over without stirring or beating
- Broader terms
- Examples
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Fold the egg whites into the batter
cease to operate or cause to cease operating
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The owners decided to move and to close the factory
My business closes every night at 8 P.M.
More examples (1)
close up the shop
confine in a fold, like sheep
- Synonyms
become folded or folded up
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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The bed folds in a jiffy