foundational

[ foun-dey-shuh-nl ]

adjective

1. of or relating to the basis or groundwork on which something rests or is built; needing to be understood or established at the beginning:

   We believe that fostering a strong local community is a foundational component of our inner-city scholarship program, guiding everything else we do.

Other Words From

• foun·da·tion·al·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of foundational¹

foundation ( def ) + -al ¹( def )

Example Sentences

This remarkable evolutionary conservation is a foundational concept in genome research.

From Quanta Magazine

Even some calamities that the world has avoided to date, such as a cyberattack on foundational global systems, should be part of scenario planning.

From Fortune

This year’s Digiday Technology Awards winners played foundational roles in enabling media companies and marketers to earn money from their content, reach their audiences and make the most of digital real estate.

From Digiday

For starters, the work Poly did on creating an extensive taxonomy to organize work into categories was foundational in creating better alignment.

From Search Engine Land

Which is the foundational technique of most of the AI that we use today.

From MIT Technology Review

Back then, property was understood by universal consensus as a foundational cornerstone of human liberty and a life worth living.

From The Daily Beast

And we are, to my knowledge, the only nation that has hounding down joy written into our foundational documents.

From The Daily Beast

The separation of church (synagogue, mosque, etc.) and state is a foundational pillar of American democracy.

From The Daily Beast

Polls show Americans now struggle to take our foundational institutions seriously.

From The Daily Beast

Its foundational ideology, stripped of colonialist doubletalk, was simply one of white supremacy.

From The Daily Beast

This Navigation policy gave a strong foundational support to the whole protective policy.

From Project Gutenberg

Still more significant is the increased mechanical efficiency in the foundational industries.

From Project Gutenberg

It was this course that was looked forward to with the keenest curiosity as the foundational instruction given by the school.

From Project Gutenberg

His fortissimo chords have hitherto lacked the foundational power and splendour of d'Albert's, Busoni's, and Rosenthal's.

From Project Gutenberg

It would show everything foundational, with a cross-section displaying the depth of the walls below street grades.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• central
• constitutional
• crucial
• elemental
• elementary
• essential
• indispensable
• integral
• intrinsic
• major
• necessary
• paramount
• principal
• radical
• significant
• structural
• theoretical
• underlying
• vital