Also 5 fooldyn, 6 folde, 8 Sc. fauld, 9 dial. faud. [f. FOLD sb.2]
1. trans. To shut up (sheep, etc.) in a fold, to pen; occas. with up; also absol. Of hurdles: To serve for penning. (In OE. once intr. to make or set up sheepfolds.)
a. 1100. Gerefa, in Anglia (1886), IX. 261. Faldian, fiscwer and mylne macian.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 168/2. Fooldyn, or put beestys in a folde, caulo.
1565. Cooper, Thesaurus, s.v. Claudo, To folde with hurdels.
1590. Nashe, Pasquil’s Apol., 1. D iv. At the deliuery of the Lawe in Sinay (Exo. 19) GOD commaunded his people to be folded vp, and to stand within the barres, vppon paine of death.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, I. xxvi. 165. The profit that the farmer may make of his goats, is their dung, whether it be by folding them vpon their fallowes in the Summer time.
1634. Milton, Comus, 93.
| Comus. The Star that bids the Shepherd fold, | |
| Now the top of Heav’n doth hold. |
1661. Webster & Rowley, Thracian Wonder, I. B iij. Let’s make haste to fold up our flocks, I fear we shall have a foul evening.
1765. A. Dickson, Treat. Agric., iii. (ed. 2), 380. It is a custom, in some places, to fold sheep and cattle, for the sake of their dung; which, in this way, is used without any mixture.
1822. Rogers, Italy, Monte Cassino, 32.
| Nor was the respite longer, if so long, | |
| Than while a shepherd in the vale below | |
| Counts, as he folds, five hundred of his flock. |
1842. Johnson, Farmer’s Encycl., s.v. Hurdle, A dozen and a half hurdles will fold 30 sheep.
1842. Bischoff, Woollen Manuf., II. 137. We never fold our merino or other sheep, the land is too wet.
1894. Times, 6 March, 4/1. Flock masters are folding on it [rye] early.
b. fig.; esp. in spiritual sense. Cf. FEED v. 2.
1826. Macaulay, Dies Iræ, 51.
| Fold me with the sheep that stand | |
| Pure and safe at thy right hand. |
1871. Macduff, Mem. Patmos, xiv. 192. ‘The Lamb that is in the midst of the Throne’ shall tend them, feed them, guide them, fold them!
1887. Pall Mall G., 18 Oct., 1/2. These hitherto wandering sheep are in process of being folded into the comprehensive pastures of the national religion.
2. To place sheep in a fold or folds upon (a piece of ground), for the purpose of manuring it. To fold off: to use (a crop) as pasture for folded sheep.
1671. St. Foine Improved, 3. The Men of the Vale might … desire that those of the Hill-country might not Fold, or Dung their Ground, or Sow any Corn.
1759. trans. Duhamel’s Husb., II. i. (1762), 127. Two contiguous pieces of ground, containing 20 arpents, had been folded, and were just going to be plowed for the last time.
1794. J. Boys, Agric. Surv. Kent, 37. The clover being again folded off, a good crop of wheat is produced, and the land in a gradual course of improvement.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric., II. 61. When his grass fields have been partially folded with sheep.
Hence Folded ppl. a. Also Folder, one who folds sheep; a shepherd.
1571. W. Elderton, Epit. on Jewel, in Farr, S. P. Eliz. (1845), II. 512.
| Alas! is Juell dead, the folder of the flocke? | |
| If death haue caught the diall up, then who shall keepe the clocke? |
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Epil.
| To teach the ruder shepheard how to feede his sheepe, | |
| And from the falsers fraud his folded flocke to keepe. |
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts 74. Among folded beasts they are of most dignity and worth.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IX. 256.
| The bending shelves with loads of cheeses press’d, | |
| The folded flocks each sep’rate from the rest. |
1801. J. Bree, Derwent Water, iii.
| Or when to eve the white star faintly shone, | |
| And Luna laboured o’er the trackless fell, | |
| What time the folder hears the mandrake’s moan, | |
| By sparkling tarn, or down the haunted dell. |
1853. M. Arnold, The Scholar Gipsy, 17.
| While to my ear from uplands far away | |
| The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, | |
| With distant cries of reapers in the corn— | |
| All the live murmur of a summer’s day. |
