a. and adv. Forms: 1–3 fiffeald, (fifeald), 2–3 fiffald. -fold, 6 fivefolde, -fould, 7– fivefold. [OE. fíffeald, f. fíf FIVE + -feald -FOLD.]

1

  A.  adj.

2

  1.  Consisting of five together, comprising five things or kinds.

3

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Gram. (Z.), 284. Quinarius, fiffeald.

4

c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 75. Heore fif-falde mihte hom wes al binumen.

5

c. 1200.  Ormin, 7836.

        Himm birrþ off all hiss sinne beon
  Þurrh fiffald pine clensedd.

6

1601.  Shaks., Twel. N., I. v. 312.

        Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbes, actions, and spirit,
Do giue thee fiue-fold blazon.

7

1624.  Quarles, Job (1717), 183. He hath torn me with the five-fold knot Of his sharp scourge.

8

1860.  Pusey, The Minor Prophets, 398. In a measured dirge he pronounces a five-fold woe on the five great sins of the Chaldees, their ambition, covetousness, violence, insolence, idolatry.

9

  2.  Five times as great or numerous; quintuple.

10

1557.  Recorde, Whetst., B ij. Quintupla. 5 to 1:10 to 2:15 to 3:20 to 4. Fiuefolde.

11

1612–5.  Bp. Hall, Contempl., O. T., III. v. All the brethren are intertained bountifully, but Benjamin hath a fiue-fold portion.

12

1830.  Bentham, in Westm. Rev., XIII. 431. As the quantity of business-time is five-fold, so is the quantity of delay-time five-fold.

13

  B.  adv. In five-fold proportion.

14

1571.  Digges, Pantom., IV. xxv. Hh. The diameter of this body is fiuefolde in power greater than the side of his inscribed Cube.

15

1885.  Manch. Exam., 20 July, 6/1. London itself has increased fivefold since the century began.

16

  Hence Fivefold v. rare. trans. To quintuple.

17

1858.  Bushnell, Serm. New Life, 165. The capacity of religion, taken as the highest trust God gives us, he is teaching his disciples may be fivefolded, tenfolded, indefinitely increased, as all other gifts are, by a proper use.

18