foundational

American

[foun-dey-shuh-nl] / faʊnˈdeɪ ʃə nl /

Rarely foundationary

adjective

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 Word Forms

foundationally adverb

Etymology

Origin of foundational

foundation ( def. ) + -al ¹ ( def. )

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.

Fifteen manuscripts from the museum’s collection are presented alongside four contemporary paintings by Harmonia Rosales to explore how one of the most foundational stories has evolved—and stayed the same—across the centuries.

From The Wall Street Journal

DeepSeek’s success accelerated the pace of development across other Chinese AI labs and cemented open-weight as the de facto standard for China’s foundational models.

From MarketWatch

You make yourself weaker in the world when you lose foundational friendships.

From The Wall Street Journal

The move fits within a broader effort by the academy to acknowledge creative labor that plays a foundational role in filmmaking but often operates outside the spotlight.

From Los Angeles Times

“It’s still desirable, right? It’s scarce and desirable. So it requires work to produce, and like there’s food, energy, money, as kind of three key working systems that are very foundational to our economic system.”

From MarketWatch

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023