folding

1. 1
   adjective

   Built to bend or collapse along hinges or creases so the object can be stored in less space.

   The camp sells lightweight folding cots that pack into a backpack.

   A folding bicycle lets commuters carry it right onto the train.

   Similarcollapsible

   Note

   Unlike the verb's participle, this adjective describes what an object is built to do, not what it is doing: a folding chair can stand open all day. It is not comparable, so nothing is more folding than another, and it stands before its noun, as in folding bed or folding bicycle. Its opposite is the plain compound non-folding.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The action of bending material over onto itself, or a crease formed by that action.

   The folding of the napkins gave the table a formal look.

   Origami relies on precise folding to create complex shapes.

   Similarcreasing, bending

   Note

   A noun that readily takes a plural, and the plural is where it is most interesting. Joseph Addison, before 1719, wrote of the "lower foldings" of a vest in antique sculpture, meaning the creases of drapery. A modern baker speaks of rollings and foldings of dough, meaning the repeated actions. The same plural can therefore count either the creases or the number of times the fold is made.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of fold.

   She is folding the map along its original creases.

   By folding the dough repeatedly, the baker created flaky layers.

   Note

   The -ing form serves both progressive tenses with be (she is folding the map) and gerund use (folding the dough takes patience). It carries every sense of fold, including the cook's gentle stirring, as in folding egg whites into batter, and the informal sense of collapsing, as when a flimsy table is folding under a heavy load. It names an action, where the adjective in folding chair names a design.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The deformation of the Earth's crust in which rock layers bend under slow lateral compression.

   Intense folding produced the dramatic ridges visible across the region.

   The textbook explains how folding and faulting reshape continental crust.

   Note

   Geologists use the word for rock that bends rather than breaks. Layers laid down roughly flat are pushed slowly sideways until they buckle into arches and troughs, the structures called anticlines and synclines. It is often paired with faulting, and the two are easy to tell apart: folding bends the strata, while faulting fractures and displaces them.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   A source code display technique that hides the contents of methods, classes, and other blocks for easier navigation.

   Most modern editors support folding so developers can collapse whole classes at once.

   She used folding to tuck away the helper methods and focus on the main logic.

   Note

   A programmer's term, usually met in the full phrase code folding. The editor collapses a block, such as a method body or a class, into a single placeholder line that can be expanded again. The file itself is unchanged and nothing is deleted. The usual verbs are collapse and expand, and the effect concerns only what appears on screen.

6. 6
   nounslanguncountable

   Paper money in the form of banknotes, rather than coins.

   The dealer only took folding, no cards and no coins.

   He flashed a fat roll of folding at the bar.

   Similarnotes, bills, cash

   Note

   Slang that names banknotes by their handiest trait: they fold. In Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye (1953), a best-selling novelist "must have made plenty of the folding." That shape is the natural one, a mass noun with the definite article. It suits casual or deliberately hard-boiled writing. In neutral prose, cash or banknotes is the safer choice.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The keeping of sheep within enclosures on plowed or cultivated land.

   Traditional folding moved the flock across the field section by section.

   Many farms relied on folding to manage their sheep on cropland.

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