When people say there’s been an “𝑥 fold increase in such and such.” They mean such and such is 𝑥 times as big.

If you get something that actually folds like a sheet of paper, the amount of layers doubles each time. One fold = twice as many layers. Two folds = four times as many layers…

  • sp3ctr4lEnglish
    57·
    2 days ago

    Yeah, 'number’fold words in modern English are actually linguistic hold overs from before ‘fold’ was a verb that meant to bend something along a crease.

    https://www.etymonline.com/word/twofold

    In a whole bunch of proto-English languages, fold or feald or fald or falt were all multiplicative suffixes (basically) attached to a number, which made a new word meaning to multiply by the number.

    …

    I’d be willing to bet this is also why the phrase ‘doubled over’ literally means that a person is bent, or folded at their abdomen.

    You take the new meaning of fold (to bend along a crease) but replace it with the word that twofold literally means (doubled).

    If you interpreted ‘doubled over’ as literally as OP is taking twofold, then the phrase should mean that a person was above something and then spontaneously grew a clone of themselves, or became twice as heavy or tall or something.