Fold sb.³

Forms: 4–5 falde, 4–6 folde, 4 felde, (6 folte), 6–7 foulde, 3– fold. [ME. fald, f. fald-en, FOLD v.¹; cf. MDu. voude (Du. vouw), OHG. falt masc. (MHG. valte, mod.Ger. falte fem.), ON. fald-r masc., falda fem. (Sw. fåll, Da. fold).

  OE. had fyjd, *field:—WGer. *faldi-z of equivalent formation, but it did not survive into ME.]

  1.  A bend or ply, such as is produced when any more or less flexible object is folded; one of the parts, or both of them together, which are brought together in folding; spec. (see quot. 1882). † In early poetic use, in fold, of rich fold, is a formula often introduced with little meaning in descriptions of costly garments.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 23451 (Cott.).

c. 1325.  English Metrical Homilies, 113. Or uestement of riche fold.

a. 1400.  Sir Perc., 32.

c. 1475[?].  Sqr. Lowe Degre, 835.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, VIII. viii. 94.

1689.  Lond. Gaz., No. 2470/4. Several Pieces of Guilix and Gentish Hollands in the Long Fold.

1741.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Drapery.… As to the folds, they should be so managed, that you may easily perceive what it is that they cover.

1814.  Scott, Ld. of Isles, IV. xxvi.

1852.  Seidel, Organ, 36. When blown, these bellows form two, three, or more folds, and are thus similar to our blacksmiths’ bellows.

1874.  Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 105/1. Angle-joint.… g has a fold to each plate; these lock upon each other and require no solder to perfect their hold.

1882.  Caulfeild & Saward, Dict. Needlework, Folds.—The draping produced by Pleating or Gathering at the waist of a skirt; or the flat plaits on any part of a skirt, bodice, or sleeve, secured at each end to the dress to keep them in place; or the doubling of any cloth so that one part shall lie over another.

  fig.  1605.  Shaks., Lear, I. i. 221.

1683.  Dryden, Life Plutarch, 113. Here methinks, our author seems to have sufficiently understood the folds and doubles of Sylla’s disposition; for his character is full of variety and inconsistencies.

1742.  Young, Nt. Th., IV. 733.

1820.  Shelley, Sensit. Plant, I. 31.

1873.  Max Müller, Sc. Relig., 1. I tried to convince not only scholars by profession, but historians, theologians, and philosophers, nay everybody who had once felt the charm of gazing inwardly upon the secret workings of his own mind, veiled and revealed as they are in the flowing folds of language, that the discoveries made by comparative philologists could no longer be ignored with impunity.

  b.  A similar configuration in animal and vegetable structures.

a. 1250.  Owl & Night., 602. A mong þe folde of harde rinde.

1562.  Bulleyn, Bk. Sicke Men, 50 a. Masticke hath a property, that it will let, & not suffre Scamonie, to cliue to the foltes [1579, foldes] of the stomackem which oftentymes causeth a bloudy flixe, & excoriation of the guts.

1651.  Life Father Sarpi, 30. The finding out of those Valvulæ, those inward shuts or folds that are within the veines.

1731.  Arbuthnot, Aliments, VI. viii. 217. The inward Coat of a Lion’s Stomach has stronger Folds than a Human, but in other Things not much different.

1841–71.  T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4), 522. In this species the sexual parts appear at first sight to form but a single organ, imbedded in a fold of the alimentary canal; but by the assistance of a microscope, this is readily seen to consist of two portions—one male, and the other female.

1854.  Owen, Teeth, in Orr’s Circ. Sc., Organ. Nat., I. 283. The variety in the pattern of the folds of enamel that penetrate the substance of the tooth, and add to its triturating power, is almost endless.

  c.  A winding or sinuosity.

a. 1250.  Owl & Night., 695.

1555.  Eden, Decades (Arb.), 213. It chaunceth that diggyng the earth by the fouldes or indented places of the mountaynes, or on the fydes, and breakynge a myne in the earthe where it had not byn broken before, and hauyng nowe dygged one or two or three poles in measure, the myners founde certeyne coles of wood vnder the same leuel where they found gold.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 113. That towne … stood as it were in a fold, or plait, or nouke thereof [i.e., of the gulf].

1832.  W. Irving, Alhambra, II. 231. Bonfires, here and there in the Vega, and along the folds of the mountains, blazed up palely in the moonlight.

1887.  Bowen, Virg. Æneid, II. 748. Bestowed in the winding folds of the glen.

  d.  A layer or ‘thickness’ (of cloth, etc.); a coat (of an onion). † With numerals, sing. in pl. sense.

1527.  Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, D j b. Two. or .iii. folde of clowte wet in the same water and layde on the plastre of a wounde.

1626.  Bacon, Sylva, § 771. The Ancient Ægyptian Mummies, were shrowded in a Number of Folds of Linnen, besmeared with Gummes, in manner of Seare-Cloth.

1675.  Hobbes, Odyssey (1677), 232. The fold of a dry onion.

1697.  Dryden, Æneid, V. 538.

1804.  Med. Jrnl., XII. 1 July, 64. I am unfriendly to the application of cold water in a fit of the gout; on the other hand, I am no less so to the common mode of wrapping up the part in several folds of flannel.

1838.  T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, 116. By exposure to the air it becomes speedily yellow. To prevent this it must be rapidly dried between folds of blotting paper, and then placed in a vacuum over sulphuric acid.

  e.  In a serpent’s body: A coil.

1592.  Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 877.

1667.  Milton, P. L., IX. 498–9.

1697.  Creech, Manilius, I. 14.

1884.  W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 93.

  f.  A length (of string) between two bends.

1839.  G. Bird, Nat. Philos., 69. Each fold of string sustains a share of the weight, or resistance.

  g.  Building. (See quot.)

1842.  Gwilt, Encycl. Archit., § 2172. Floors … which are folded, that is when the boards are laid in divisions, whose side vertical joints are not continuous, but in bays of three, four, five, or more boards in a bay or fold.

  2.  Something that is or may be folded; a leaf of a book, a sheet of paper, one of the leaves of a folding-door.

c. 1315.  Shoreham, 91.

1624.  Massinger, Parl. Love, III. ii.

1667.  Milton, P. L., I. 722.

1808.  J. Barlow, The Columbiad, III. 681.

  † 3.  ? A wrapping, covering. Obs.

1497.  Will of Sympson (Somerset Ho.). A folde and a standard of Mayle.

1633.  Ford, The Broken Heart, III. v.

  4.  The action of folding; † a clasp or embrace.

1606.  Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. iii. 222.

1885.  Crane, Bookbinding, iv. 33. Still another fold gives a ‘32mo.’

  5.  The line or mark made by folding.

1840.  Lardner, Geom., 18. Both coincide with the fold of the paper.

  6.  The words manifold, threefold, etc. (see -FOLD suffix) have occasionally been viewed (erroneously) as syntactical combinations of the adjs. with the present sb. Hence the following uses:

  † a.  Many a fold = many times, with many repetitions. Obs.

c. 1400.  Melayne, 445.

c. 1420.  Chron. Vilod., 306. And þonkede þerfore God mony a ffolde.

1503.  Hawes, The Example of Virtue, lxxxii. (Arb.), 22.

  † b.  By many a fold: in manifold proportion, many times over. So by foldes seven. Obs.

c. 1450.  Mirour Saluacioun, 4299.

c. 1460.  Towneley Myst. (Surtees), 20. More bi foldes seven than I can welle expres.

1587.  Harrison, England, II. iii. (1877), I. 73. The towne of Cambridge … exceedeth that of Oxford (which otherwise is, and hath beene, the greater of the two) by manie a fold.

  c.  One portion of a ‘manifold’ thing.

1826.  E. Irving, Babylon, I. ii. 77. To which fourfold chain of evidence, upon any single fold of which I am willing to suspend the whole weight of the conclusion.

1839.  R. Philip, Life W. Milne, I. 22. It stopped his basket-making before he got through two folds of the ‘Four-fold State.’