enfold
Americanverb (used with object)
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enfolds,
present (3rd person singular)
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enfolded,
past participle, past
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enfolding
present participle
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to wrap up; envelop.
to enfold someone in a cloak.
-
to surround as if with folds.
He wished to enfold her in the warmth of his love. What happened is enfolded in mystery.
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to hug or clasp; embrace.
She enfolded him in her arms.
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to form into a fold or folds.
The material of the skirt had been enfolded to form a loose, graceful drape.
verb
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to cover by enclosing
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to embrace
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to form with or as with folds
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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enfoldsimple
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enfoldssimple
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have enfoldedperfect
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has enfoldedperfect
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am enfoldingprogressive
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are enfoldingprogressive
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is enfoldingprogressive
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have been enfoldingperfect progressive
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has been enfoldingperfect progressive
Past
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enfoldedsimple
-
had enfoldedperfect
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was enfoldingprogressive
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were enfoldingprogressive
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had been enfoldingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enfold
Explanation
To enfold is to wrap, envelop, or surround. You might enfold a baby in a blanket, or enfold a puppy in your arms. When you enfold something, you either wrap it in a cloth or covering, or you mimic this action literally — with your arms — or figuratively. You could say, for example, that as you walk home at sunset, the night begins to enfold your neighborhood. Or you can say that you love when your grandma enfolds you in a hug. The verb enfold combines the prefix en-, "make or put in" with fold.
Vocabulary lists containing enfold
Vocabulary from Readings 3, Unit 1
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Vocabulary from Readings 1, Unit 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Little did I know this decision would nearly get me arrested, set me on a path across two coasts, instigate community programming, and enfold kindred spirits near and far.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 14, 2023
When you see the power of love and people reaching out from their own pain, how that can really surround you and enfold you and help you.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2023
Fortunately, one of Ozeki’s gifts as a novelist is the ability to enfold provocative intellectual material within a human story grounded in sharply observed social detail.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 24, 2021
Dark wallpaper and dimly glittering chandeliers enfold the room’s tiered seats, erasing any divide between viewer and stage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2018
A huge iridescent bubble seemed to enfold me.
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
Cynthia puts her hands out to clasp mine and then enfolds me in her arms.
From BBC ● May 25, 2024
A novel isn’t a play, but Akhtar, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Disgraced,” has written a book that enfolds a semifictionalized memoir of a Pakistani-American playwright into a sweeping sociopolitical synthesis of America.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2020
The coinage enfolds this book’s argument: Too many immigrants are being locked up like criminals, and no one — not even criminals — should be treated this way.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 23, 2020
She’s consumed with thoughts of the baby boy she lost just months earlier, music that enfolds fragile vocal lines in subdued, trembling orchestral harmonies.
From New York Times ● Apr. 24, 2016
I am careful not to wake this girl who enfolds me.
From "Every Day" by David Levithan
One wishes the film better enfolded Indigenous culture within the narrative: While we do see a few hints, what’s given is not enough.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2022
That restless motion is enfolded in swelling string-section chords, going nowhere in particular yet not staying still.
From New York Times ● Jul. 15, 2022
He set them down on the tiled floor, opened the door of one, reached inside with a dark towel, and enfolded what was inside.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 8, 2022
The late essayist Christopher Hitchens once referred to the novel as “a love story enfolded in a bildungsroman and wrapped in a conspiracy theory” — using a $10 word for a coming-of-age tale.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 14, 2022
It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Essential to a wilderness is its capacity to bewilder, and though certain of Church’s colleagues in the Hudson River group, notably Worthington Whittredge, brilliantly captured this dense, enfolding quality, Church seldom did.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
And it’s this grace that swirls like a ghost through “Past Lives,” enfolding all three central characters and investing their stories, or what little we see of those stories, with a rare and harmonious balance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2023
Amid their taut geometries are passages of enfolding softness and effulgent color harmonies — rich reds, pale yellows and blues against his favorite milky lime green.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 27, 2019
He starts out and, in utter, enfolding darkness, he runs.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 7, 2019
It was dark, with an enfolding blackness that pressed on Lyra’s eyes so heavily that she almost felt the weight of the thousands of tons of rock above them.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
