founder
1 Americannoun
verb (used without object)
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(of a ship, boat, etc.) to fill with water and sink.
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to fall or sink down, as buildings, ground, etc..
Built on a former lake bed, the building has foundered nearly ten feet.
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to become wrecked; fail utterly.
The project foundered because public support was lacking.
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to stumble, break down, or go lame, as a horse.
His mount foundered on the rocky path.
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to become ill from overeating.
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Veterinary Pathology. (of a horse) to suffer from laminitis.
verb (used with object)
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to cause to fill with water and sink.
Rough seas had foundered the ship in mid-ocean.
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Veterinary Pathology. to cause (a horse) to break down, go lame, or suffer from laminitis.
noun
noun
verb
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(of a ship) to sink
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to break down or fail
the project foundered
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to sink into or become stuck in soft ground
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to fall in or give way; collapse
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(of a horse) to stumble or go lame
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archaic (of animals, esp livestock) to become ill from overeating
noun
noun
noun
Usage
Founder is sometimes wrongly used where flounder is meant: this unexpected turn of events left him floundering (not foundering )
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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foundersimple
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founderssimple
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have founderedperfect
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has founderedperfect
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am founderingprogressive
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are founderingprogressive
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is founderingprogressive
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have been founderingperfect progressive
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has been founderingperfect progressive
Past
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founderedsimple
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had founderedperfect
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was founderingprogressive
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were founderingprogressive
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had been founderingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of founder1
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English found(o)ur, foundere, fundre “original builder of a city, church, castle, or city; founder of a country,” from Anglo-French fundur, from Old French fondeor, from Latin fundātōr-, stem of fundātor; see origin at found 1; see also -er 1 ( def. )
Origin of founder2
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English foundren, funder, fonder, from Old French fondrer “to plunge to the bottom, submerge,” from Vulgar Latin fundorāre (unattested), derivative of fundor-, an s -stem noun interpreted as stem of Latin fundus, actually an o -stem noun (stem fund- ) “bottom”
Origin of founder3
First recorded in 1400–50; Middle English foundour, founder, from Old French fondeur, from fondre “to melt, cast”; see origin at found 3, -er 1
Explanation
The person who creates an organization or a company is known as the founder. Founder is also a verb meaning "fail miserably," which is something a company's founder hopes the company will never do. As a noun, founder means "the beginner or originator of something." You might talk about the founder of a nation, the founder of club, or the founder of a website. As a verb, founder can mean “stumble,” like when you trip and fall, but more generally it means "collapse or fall apart." A sports team might founder by slumping on a ten-game losing streak; a ship that sinks in a bad storm can be said to have foundered at sea.
Vocabulary lists containing founder
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"The Great Gatsby," Chapter 1 Vocabulary
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On the evidence of these letters, she had two great loves: Ahmet Ertegun, a principal founder of Atlantic Records, and Tom Dowd, renown recording engineer and producer who worked for Ertegun.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
"Oslo has seen booking growth of 154 percent year-over-year, Helsinki 124 percent... Those numbers tell me that travellers are actively looking beyond the traditional summer hotspots," said the expert and founder of Coolcation Adventures.
From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026
Netta Levy, an eldercare adviser and founder of LifeCare Concierge, recently had a driving discussion with her mom, after a few fender benders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
Following Pradhan's resignation, the CJP founder Dipke said in a statement on X that the fight was not over yet.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
In the early nineteenth century Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore, while supervising the British occupation of Java sent two gamelan sets back to Britain, housed today in the British Museum.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Its founders staged a sit-in in Delhi, demanding Pradhan's resignation, education reforms and compensation for the bereaved families.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Under Beijing’s new system, Chinese founders can still list their companies on offshore exchanges and then cash out shares.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
The backgrounds of school founders and employees often simply don’t matter.
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
With DTLA’s post-pandemic troubles amid a boom in dance music, Origin’s founders hope the scene can help again.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
Among the men put with us was George Peake, one of the founders of the South African Coloured People’s Organization, a Treason Trialist, and most recently a member of the Cape Town City Council.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
Instead, they foundered in the breeze, squeezing out whatever bitter juice was left in a dirge that would prove to drag on for at least another week.
From Slate ● Feb. 23, 2026
But then the Fed foundered on fundamentals and inflation surged.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
Le Pen's attempts to win the presidency foundered, although he finished runner-up in 2002.
From BBC ● Dec. 31, 2025
The five living presidents who succeeded him, whose own Mideast peace efforts sometimes bore brief fruit but more often foundered, have all paid public tribute to him, in their own ways.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2025
Just after Lopsang disappeared down the Step, Hansen apparently ran out of oxygen and foundered.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
Though British rule over his home country of Jamaica ended in 1962, independence and economic mismanagement led to high unemployment and a foundering youth culture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 2025
What’s more, in the Spy magazine era, Mr. Trump was just a local nuisance, a braggart presiding over a foundering casino-hotel empire.
From Salon ● Feb. 9, 2024
“The Shadow of a Doubt,” a full-length 1901 play that got close to a Broadway opening before foundering under murky circumstances.
From New York Times ● Aug. 23, 2023
On this evening, the colleagues had more urgent concerns on their minds: how to salvage a foundering trip in Asia that was launched to find a novel food product to import to the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 3, 2023
The Captains of the West were foundering in a gathering sea.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
