folio
Americannoun
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a sheet of paper folded once to make two leaves, or four pages, of a book or manuscript.
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a volume having pages of the largest size, formerly made from such a sheet.
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a leaf of a manuscript or book numbered only on the front side.
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a case that, when closed, covers and protects both the screen and the back panel of a mobile device, as a tablet or smartphone.
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Printing.
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(in a book) the number of each page.
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(in a newspaper) the number of each page together with the date and the name of the newspaper.
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Bookkeeping. a page of an account book or a left-hand page and a right-hand page facing each other and having the same serial number.
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Law. a certain number of words, in the U.S. generally 100, taken as a unit for computing the length of a document.
adjective
verb (used with object)
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to number each leaf or page of.
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Law. to mark each folio in (a pleading or the like) with the proper number.
noun
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a sheet of paper folded in half to make two leaves for a book or manuscript
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a book or manuscript of the largest common size made up of such sheets
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a leaf of paper or parchment numbered on the front side only
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a page number in a book
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law a unit of measurement of the length of legal documents, determined by the number of words, generally 72 or 90 in Britain and 100 in the US
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a collection of related material
adjective
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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foliosimple
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foliossimple
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have folioedperfect
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has folioedperfect
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am folioingprogressive
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are folioingprogressive
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is folioingprogressive
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have been folioingperfect progressive
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has been folioingperfect progressive
Past
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folioedsimple
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had folioedperfect
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was folioingprogressive
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were folioingprogressive
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had been folioingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of folio
1525–35; < Latin foliō (originally in phrase in foliō in a leaf, sheet), ablative of folium folium
Explanation
A folio is an old fashioned kind of book, typically made of large folded sheets of paper. In the 1600s, many of Shakespeare's plays were printed in the form of a folio. The word folio means "leaf or sheet of paper" in Latin. A folio is made by folding one piece of paper in half — counting each side, this gives you four pages. A larger folio is simply a collection of many folded sheets bound together. In the early days of printing, the fanciest books were folios. Another method was the quarto, with two folds in each sheet and pages that had to be cut open after they were bound.
Vocabulary lists containing folio
Curtain Call: Dance and Theater Terms
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"Why Read Shakespeare?" Vocabulary from the argument
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Shakespeare
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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:
A dog-eared punk zine flutters near a vellum-bound folio.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2025
Another chapter patiently explains, with illustrations, the process of printing a large folio.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 21, 2023
This work, “Muhammad’s Call to Prophecy and the First Revelation,” a folio from a Majma’ al-Tavarikh, has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
From New York Times ● Jan. 8, 2023
Any library or museum lucky enough to own an original Audubon folio displays it under glass and turns one page every week or so.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 31, 2022
Zora made me sit at the kitchen table while she brought it out like a librarian with a Shakespeare folio.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
First folios have been on exhibit everywhere from the British Museum to the New York Public Library and at least two major book projects will mark the anniversary.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 23, 2023
Also included are 11 folios of an early Quran dating back to the late eighth century, an inscribed bronze bowl and a monument dating to the first century B.C.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 22, 2023
The others artifacts are a bronze bowl, believed to be from the 3rd century, and 11 folios from an 8th-century Quran.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 21, 2023
In contrast, Nightingale packaged her charts in attractive slim folios, integrating diagrams with witty prose.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 23, 2022
Each piece is registered in huge organizational folios that have taken centuries to amass.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
All books for office use are either folioed or paged, i.e., either each page or each sheet gets a consecutive number in order to facilitate reference from the index.
From Practical Bookbinding by Adam, Paul
Maccabees, 474 ll. folioed, N. T. 122 leaves, 'A Briefe Table' HH h iii to LLl iii.,
From Book Collecting: A Guide for Amateurs by Slater, J. Herbert (John Herbert)
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.
