• (GA) IPA: /ˈfaʊndɚ/
• (RP) IPA: /ˈfaʊndə/

1. One who founds or establishes (especially said of a company, project, organisation, state)

   the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg

2. (genetics) Someone for whose parents one has no data.

• (one who founds) ruiner

• French: fondateur, fondatrice
• German: Gründer, Gründerin
• Italian: fondatore, creatore
• Portuguese: fundador
• Russian: основа́тель
• Spanish: fundador

• Russian: найдёныш

founder (plural founders)

1. The iron worker in charge of the blast furnace and the smelting operation.
   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, p. 161.

     The term 'founder' was applied in the British iron industry long afterwards to the ironworker in charge of the blast furnace and the smelting operation.

2. One who casts metals in various forms; a caster.

   a founder of cannon, bells, hardware, or printing types

• French: fondeur
• Italian: fonditore
• Portuguese: fundidor
• Russian: плави́льщик

• German: ^{(please verify)} Eisengießer m, Glockengießer (of bells)
• Italian: modellatore, foggiatore, plasmatore
• Russian: лите́йщик

founder (founders, present participle foundering; past and past participle foundered)

1. (intransitive) Of a ship, to fill with water and sink.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship but we saw her sink, and then I understood for the first time what was meant by a ship foundering in the sea.

2. (intransitive) To fall; to stumble and go lame, as a horse.
3. (intransitive) To fail; to miscarry.
   • 1613, William Shakespeare; [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:

     All his tricks founder.

4. (transitive, archaic, nautical) To cause to fill and sink, as a ship.
   • 1697, William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, Volume I, page 82

     We found a strong Tide setting out of the Streights to the Northward, and like to founder our Ship.

   • 1744, William Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea, page 167, quoted in The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds Of The Slave Trade, Robert Harms, 2008

     "I was amazed when we came among the breakers (which to me seemed large enough to founder our ship), to see with what wondrous dexterity they carried us through them, and ran their canoes on the top of one of those rolling waves […] "

   • 1932, Hart Crane, "From haunts of Proserpine" (Review of Green River: A Poem for Rafinesque, James Whaler

     But still more disastrous was the storm which foundered his ship in Long Island Sound, swallowing within call of shore his fifty boxes of scientific equipment, his books, manuscripts and funds, the results of years of devoted labor.

5. (transitive) To disable or lame (a horse) by causing internal inflammation and soreness in the feet or limbs.

• French: couler, sombrer
• German: sinken
• Portuguese: afundir, afundar
• Russian: затонуть
• Spanish: hundir, zozobrar, irse a pique

• German: stolpern
• Portuguese: tropeçar

• French: échouer
• German: scheitern
• Portuguese: fracassar, falhar
• Spanish: fracasar, zozobrar