founder

Forms

1.One who founds or establishes (a company, project, organisation, state, etc.).
- The founder of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg.
- Chris Printup, a founder of the streetwear brand Born X Raised, which became a fixture on the Los Angeles fashion scene, died on Wednesday morning at a hospital in Albuquerque. He was 42.
- Young people love to idolize their predecessors. [Steve] Jobs was Silicon Valley's idol of choice for decades, but to the next generation of startup founders, his legacy feels about as old as Web 1.0.
2.A common ancestor of some population (especially one with a certain genetic mutation).
- Among the Ashkenazi Jews in the positive group, 81 percent had one of the three founder mutations, suggesting that 23andMe's test could be helpful for them.
- The gene mutation is likely to have come from a founder individual who lived at least 250 years ago, the paper published in the European Journal of Human Genetics said.
- The sickle cell mutation today can be found in five different haplotypes, leading to the conclusion that the mutation appeared independently five times in five different founders.
3.The iron worker in charge of the blast furnace and the smelting operation.
- 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.
4.One who casts metals in various forms; a caster.

1.To flood with water and sink.
- 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.
- Amongst the battleships, things are rather different. Barham led a valiant charge, but suffered for it; she will founder under tow in the Thames estuary shallows, eventually being refloated and refitted after the war.
2.To fall; to stumble and go lame.
3.To fail; to miscarry.
4.To disable or lame (a horse) by causing internal inflammation and soreness in the feet or limbs.

Uncommon· #2803

From Old French fondeur

From Latin fundātor, equivalent to found + -er.