folio

[ foh-lee-oh ]
See synonyms for folio on Thesaurus.com
noun,plural fo·li·os.
  1. a sheet of paper folded once to make two leaves, or four pages, of a book or manuscript.

  2. a volume having pages of the largest size, formerly made from such a sheet.

  1. a leaf of a manuscript or book numbered only on the front side.

  2. a case that, when closed, covers and protects both the screen and the back panel of a mobile device, as a tablet or smartphone.

  3. Printing.

    • (in a book) the number of each page.

    • (in a newspaper) the number of each page together with the date and the name of the newspaper.

  4. 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.

  5. Law. a certain number of words, in the U.S. generally 100, taken as a unit for computing the length of a document.

adjective
  1. pertaining to or having the format of a folio: a folio volume.

verb (used with object),fo·li·oed, fo·li·o·ing.
  1. to number each leaf or page of.

  2. Law. to mark each folio in (a pleading or the like) with the proper number.

Origin of folio

1
1525–35; <Latin foliō (originally in phrase in foliō in a leaf, sheet), ablative of foliumfolium

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use folio in a sentence

  • On the table, several rolls of vellum and papyrus, peeping from metal cylinders, leant against a row of brass-bound folios.

    The Long Night | Stanley Weyman

British Dictionary definitions for folio

folio

/ (ˈfəʊlɪəʊ) /


nounplural -lios
  1. a sheet of paper folded in half to make two leaves for a book or manuscript

  2. a book or manuscript of the largest common size made up of such sheets

  1. a leaf of paper or parchment numbered on the front side only

  2. a page number in a book

  3. 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

  4. NZ a collection of related material

adjective
  1. relating to or having the format of a folio: a folio edition

verb-lios, -lioing or -lioed
  1. (tr) to number the leaves of (a book) consecutively

Origin of folio

1
C16: from Latin phrase in foliō in a leaf, from folium leaf

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012