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Foundation

//faʊnˈdeɪʃən// noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of founding, fixing, establishing, or beginning to erect. countable, uncountable

    "The foundation of his institute has been wrought with difficulty."

  2. 2
    the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new wordnet
  3. 3
    That upon which anything is founded; that on which anything stands, and by which it is supported; the lowest and supporting layer of a superstructure; underbuilding. countable, uncountable

    "Aye Madam to be sure that is the Provoking circumstance—without Foundation—yes yes—there's the mortification indeed—for when a slanderous story is believed against one—there certainly is no comfort like the consciousness of having deserved it——"

  4. 4
    lowest support of a structure wordnet
  5. 5
    The result of the work to begin something; that which stabilizes and allows an enterprise or system to develop. countable, figuratively, uncountable

    "The implication is that the Gandhian model of growth is possible, now that Nehru's investment strategy had already laid a strong foundation for economic growth."

Show 11 more definitions
  1. 6
    a woman's undergarment worn to give shape to the contours of the body wordnet
  2. 7
    In solitaire or patience games, one of the piles of cards that the player attempts to build, usually holding all cards of a suit in ascending order. countable, uncountable
  3. 8
    the fundamental assumptions from which something is begun or developed or calculated or explained wordnet
  4. 9
    The lowest and supporting part or member of a wall, including the base course and footing courses; in a frame house, the whole substructure of masonry. countable, uncountable

    "The foundations of this construction have been laid out."

  5. 10
    education or instruction in the fundamentals of a field of knowledge wordnet
  6. 11
    A donation or legacy appropriated to support a charitable institution, and constituting a permanent fund; endowment. countable, uncountable
  7. 12
    an institution supported by an endowment wordnet
  8. 13
    That which is founded, or established by endowment; an endowed institution or charity. countable, uncountable

    "The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is the parent organization of the Wiktionary collaborative project."

  9. 14
    the basis on which something is grounded wordnet
  10. 15
    Cosmetic cream roughly skin-colored, designed to make the face appear uniform in color and texture. countable, uncountable
  11. 16
    A basis for social bodies or intellectual disciplines. countable, uncountable

    "Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.[…]But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it."

Etymology

From Middle English foundacioun, fundacioun, from Old French fondacion, from Latin fundātiō (“founding, foundation”).

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