founder

1. (veterinary medicine) A severe laminitis of a horse, caused by untreated internal inflammation in the hooves.

1. (intransitive, of a ship) To flood with water and sink.Examples: "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."; "This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog—in such tones he commenced reading the following hymn;(...)"; "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."intransitive

2. (intransitive, especially of horses) To fall; to stumble and go lame.especiallyintransitive

3. (intransitive) To fail; to miscarry.Examples: "All his tricks founder."; "The other ambitions, and much of Prescott's plan, foundered just south of Hatfield that October, when a GNER express derailed on a shattered rail […], plunging the railway into a crisis that led to private track owner Railtrack being put into administration."intransitive

4. (transitive, archaic, nautical) To cause to flood and sink, as a ship.Examples: "We found a strong Tide setting out of the Streights to the Northward, and like to founder our Ship."; "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."archaictransitive

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

1. (US, often in the plural) A Founding Father.Examples: "As the Founders saw it, the great driver of freedom was knowledge."USin-pluraloften