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Forebear vs Founder - What's the difference?

forebear | founder |

As nouns the difference between forebear and founder

is that forebear is an ancestor while founder is one who founds, establishes, and erects; one who lays a foundation; an author; one from whom something originates; one who endows or founder can be the iron worker in charge of the blast furnace and the smelting operation.

As verbs the difference between forebear and founder

is that forebear is while founder is of a ship, to fill with water and sink.

forebear

English

Alternative forms

*

Noun

(en noun)
  • An ancestor.
  • * [1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr.
  • Sirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold [...]
  • * [1936] 2004, Raymond William Firth, We the Tikopia [http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=Eiji-EnuhXUC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&sig=aB2VV0fcWv6lkQPQatQQbDhlm_8]
  • One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group.
  • * 1997, H. L. Hix, Understanding W. S. Merwin [http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=8JIveUt8StQC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&sig=_AETFoZUYlti38_Va0zOHD4yZTk]
  • Beginning with the bald declaration “I think I was cold in the womb,” the speaker in “The Forbears'” then decides that his brother (who died soon after birth) must also have been cold in the womb, like his grandfather John and the ' forbears who antedated John.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)
  • , volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}

    Usage notes

    * Not to be confused with: forbear verb .

    Antonyms

    * (l)

    Verb

  • Anagrams

    *

    founder

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One who founds, establishes, and erects; one who lays a foundation; an author; one from whom something originates; one who endows.
  • (genetics) Someone for whose parents one has no data.
  • Antonyms
    * (one who founds) ruiner

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • 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.
  • One who casts metals in various forms; a caster.
  • a founder of cannon, bells, hardware, or printing types

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • Of a ship, to fill with water and sink.
  • * 1719 ,
  • 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.
  • To fall; to stumble and go lame, as a horse.
  • To disable or lame (a horse) by causing internal inflammation and soreness in the feet or limbs.
  • To fail; to miscarry.
  • * Shakespeare
  • All his tricks founder .

    Usage notes

    Frequently confused with flounder. Both may be applied to the same situation, the difference is the severity of the action: floundering'' (struggling to maintain position) comes first, followed by ''foundering (losing it by falling, sinking or failing).

    Anagrams

    * ----