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say it: FAH-loh
follow is a verb meaning "to travel behind, go after, come after". It carries 24 recorded senses.
travel along a certain course
“follow the road”
“follow the trail”
act in accordance with someone's rules, commands, or wishes
“He complied with my instructions”
“You must comply or else!”
“Follow these simple rules”
“abide by the rules”
come after in time, as a result
“A terrible tsunami followed the earthquake”
behave in accordance or in agreement with
“Follow a pattern”
“Follow my example”
to bring something about at a later time than
“She followed dinner with a brandy”
“He followed his lecture with a question and answer period”
imitate in behavior; take as a model
“Teenagers follow their friends in everything”
follow with the eyes or the mind
“Keep an eye on the baby, please!”
“The world is watching Sarajevo”
“She followed the men with the binoculars”
be the successor (of)
“Carter followed Ford”
“Will Charles succeed to the throne?”
perform an accompaniment to
“The orchestra could barely follow the frequent pitch changes of the soprano”
music
accept and follow the leadership or command or guidance of
“Let's follow our great helmsman!”
“She followed a guru for years”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for follow come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.