founder1
/ˈfaʊndə
/noun
A person who manufactures articles of cast metal; the owner or operator of a foundry: an iron founder...
- By 1840 business directories in New York City listed thirteen iron founders, and sixteen the following year.
- But Mr Milner, director of Keighley iron founders Leach and Thompson, said there were dozens of examples of manufacturers in the district switching jobs overseas.
Origin
Middle English: probably from Old French fondeur, from fondre (see found3).
Rhymes
founder2
/ˈfaʊndə/noun
1A person who establishes an institution or settlement: he was the founder of modern Costa Rica...
- Wilks was a founder member of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
- He played table tennis, tennis and cricket, and was one of the founder members of Western Athletics Club when it was established in the late 1970s.
- A founder member of the original Bradford Festival committee, Dusty Rhodes, is now leading the Reclaim Bradford Festival campaign to bring the organisation back to local people.
Synonyms
originator, creator, initiator, institutor, instigator, organizer, father, founding father, prime mover, architect, engineer, designer, deviser, developer, pioneer, author, planner, framer, inventor, mastermind, maker, producer, builder, constructor
literary begetter
rare establisher
1.1 Zoology An animal, especially a fertilized female insect, that founds a new colony.The founder flies of the colony originated from Gainesville....
- As the founder female had been inseminated before collection, the flies used in this study can be regarded as a random sample from the wild.
- The biggest risk is that almost the entire population is the product of as few as three stallions from the founder group.
founder3
/ˈfaʊndə/verb
1 [no object, with adverbial] (Of a ship) fill with water and sink: six drowned when the yacht foundered off the Cornish coast...
- That the Prime Minister's ship almost foundered on that ‘rock’ appears to have made little difference.
- The subject is an Afro-Brazilian sailor who saved many lives when his ship foundered along the coast of Brazil.
- Rather than asking why the ship foundered, Howell investigates how this maritime disaster acquired wider cultural and social significance in the years before World War I.
Synonyms
sink, go to the bottom, go down, be lost at sea, submerge, capsize, run aground, be swamped
informal go to Davy Jones's locker
1.1(Of a plan or undertaking) fail or break down as a result of a particular problem: the talks foundered on the issue of reform...
- Nothing, of course, came of this, as his proposals foundered on the rock-like conservatism of his profession.
- Although several individuals had been keen to buy the house, their plans always foundered when he questioned whether they had the financial resources to carry the project through.
- This plan foundered more through the sheer impracticability of the proposals than obstruction by officials.
Synonyms
fail, be unsuccessful, not succeed, lack success, fall through, fall flat, break down, abort, miscarry, be defeated, suffer defeat, be in vain, be frustrated, collapse, misfire, backfire, not come up to scratch, meet with disaster, come to grief, come to nothing, come to naught, miss the mark, run aground, go wrong, go awry, go astray
informal flop, fizzle out, flatline, come a cropper, bite the dust, blow up in someone's face, go down like a lead balloon
2 [no object] (Of a horse or its rider) stumble or fall from exhaustion, lameness, etc. some of their horses foundered and damaged themselves in the stones of the riverbed...
- My mother was an orphan hedgewitch, healer, and midwife of small means until one of my father's horses foundered nearly on her doorstep.
- Only a few months later, the handsome sorrel foundered and his bid for a World Championship ended.
- The pony, who is locked up so he won't founder, started galloping up and down the fenceline when I switched on the light.
Synonyms
stumble, trip, trip up, lose one's balance, lose/miss one's footing, slip, pitch, stagger, lurch, totter, fall, fall down, fall over, fall headlong, tumble, topple, sprawl, go lame, collapse
2.1chiefly North American (Of a hoofed animal, especially a horse or pony) succumb to laminitis.Don't feed straight corn, because goats will founder and have hoof problems, Finch advised....
- Keep donkeys off the sweet feed and grain, as they can founder and develop laminitis just as horses do.
- Recently, he foundered in his left fore, which was very acute.
noun [mass noun] chiefly North American
Laminitis in horses, ponies, or other hoofed animals.Rapid intakes of highly fermentable diets that occur with meal-eating behavior may cause feed-related metabolic disorders such as acidosis, founder, and bloat....
- Some of the losses have been associated with management errors, including not providing transition time, founder, and hauling water in fertilizer tanks.
Usage
It is easy to confuse the words founder and flounder, not only because they sound similar but also because the contexts in which they are used tend to overlap. Founder means, in its general and extended use, ‘fail or come to nothing’, as in the scheme foundered because of lack of organizational backing. Flounder, on the other hand, means ‘struggle; be in a state of confusion’, as in new recruits floundering about in their first week.
Origin
Middle English (in the sense 'knock to the ground'): from Old French fondrer, esfondrer 'submerge, collapse', based on Latin fundus 'bottom, base'.
founder4
/ˈfaʊndə/verb [with object] Irish
Make (someone) very cold: it would founder you out there (as adjective foundered) get a fire lit, I’m foundered...
- The band will doubtless be foundered in the crisp November air.
- The foundered journalists standing for around two hours outside were imagining the headlines.
- I have many memories of being foundered on that windswept strand in the name of family holiday time.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from founder3, influenced by obsolete found 'to chill or numb with cold'.