founder
1 Americannoun
verb (used without object)
-
founders,
present (3rd person singular)
-
foundered,
past participle, past
-
foundering
present participle
-
(of a ship, boat, etc.) to fill with water and sink.
-
to fall or sink down, as buildings, ground, etc..
Built on a former lake bed, the building has foundered nearly ten feet.
-
to become wrecked; fail utterly.
The project foundered because public support was lacking.
-
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)
-
founders,
present (3rd person singular)
-
foundered,
past participle, past
-
foundering
present participle
-
to cause to fill with water and sink.
Rough seas had foundered the ship in mid-ocean.
-
Veterinary Pathology. to cause (a horse) to break down, go lame, or suffer from laminitis.
noun
noun
verb
-
(of a ship) to sink
-
to break down or fail
the project foundered
-
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
-
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
-
foundersimple
-
founderssimple
-
have founderedperfect
-
has founderedperfect
-
am founderingprogressive
-
are founderingprogressive
-
is founderingprogressive
-
have been founderingperfect progressive
-
has been founderingperfect progressive
Past
-
founderedsimple
-
had founderedperfect
-
was founderingprogressive
-
were founderingprogressive
-
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:
Her trajectory from South L.A. activist to nonprofit founder to Sacramento, Washington and City Hall is impressive and important.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
Eatherly claimed to Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes on his podcast Get Off My Lawn that the road-rage incident created a backlash in the community that led to him being fired from his construction job.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
The court in Shenzhen city said it sentenced founder Xu Jiayin to life in prison and fined Evergrande Group and an affiliate more than $2 billion for fraud and other offences.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
Cracked turbines and broken engine cranks both are major failures that require replacement, according to Nina Sadighi, founder of Eradeh Power Consulting, an electrical engineer who formerly worked at Amazon and Tesla.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, had predicted that his powerful explosives might very well put an end to all war.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
Now as more Americans rethink the value of college, the idea of bypassing a degree is gaining luster among a new set of founders, our colleagues Chip Cutter and Allison Pohle report.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
The founders declined to discuss the deal, while BuzzBallz owner Sazerac said it would allow it "to deepen its presence in the UK".
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
Unlike the British, from whom the America’s founders adapted impeachment, the Framers wrote a definition of impeachable conduct into the Constitution—“treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026
The Nimans say the seashore’s founders explicitly included agriculture in their vision of the park.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
The founders of Macondo, resolving to expel the invaders, went with their older sons to put themselves at the disposal of José Arcadio Buendía.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Authentic specializes in acquiring and investing in famous retail properties that have foundered.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2026
The original plan was to go into partnership with Porsche, but that deal foundered by late summer 2022.
From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2026
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
They could hardly believe they had not foundered, and they prayed they would not see another wave like that one again.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
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
The 49-year-old Tourigny was hired in 2021 to help turn around a foundering franchise.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 23, 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.
