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Institute vs Foundation - What's the difference?

institute | foundation |

As nouns the difference between institute and foundation

is that institute is an organization founded to promote a cause while foundation is the act of founding, fixing, establishing, or beginning to erect.

As a verb institute

is to begin or initiate (something); to found.

As an adjective institute

is established; organized; founded.

institute

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) institut, from (etyl), from (etyl) .

Noun

(wikipedia institute) (en noun)
  • An organization founded to promote a cause
  • I work in a medical research institute .
  • An institution of learning; a college, especially for technical subjects
  • The building housing such an institution
  • (obsolete) The act of instituting; institution.
  • * Milton
  • water sanctified by Christ's institute
  • (obsolete) That which is instituted, established, or fixed, such as a law, habit, or custom.
  • * Burke
  • They made a sort of institute and digest of anarchy.
  • * Dryden
  • to make the Stoics' institutes thy own
  • (legal, Scotland) The person to whom an estate is first given by destination or limitation.
  • (Tomlins)
    Derived terms
    * educational institute * research institute * academic institute

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl), from (etyl) .

    Verb

    (institut)
  • To begin or initiate (something); to found.
  • He instituted the new policy of having children walk through a metal detector to enter school.
  • * (rfdate) Shakespeare
  • And haply institute / A course of learning and ingenious studies.
  • * 1776 , (Thomas Jefferson), (Declaration of Independence) :
  • Whenever any from of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government.
  • (obsolete) To train, instruct.
  • *, II.27:
  • *:Publius was the first that ever instituted the Souldier to manage his armes by dexteritie and skil, and joyned art unto vertue, not for the use of private contentions, but for the wars and Roman peoples quarrels.
  • * (rfdate) Dr. H. More
  • If children were early instituted , knowledge would insensibly insinuate itself.
  • To nominate; to appoint.
  • * (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • We institute your Grace / To be our regent in these parts of France.
  • (ecclesiastical, legal) To invest with the spiritual charge of a benefice, or the care of souls.
  • (Blackstone)

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (obsolete) Established; organized; founded.
  • * Robynson (More's Utopia)
  • They have but few laws. For to a people so instruct and institute , very few to suffice.

    foundation

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of founding, fixing, establishing, or beginning to erect.
  • 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; groundwork; basis; underbuilding.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The attack of the MOOCs , passage=Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations . University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.}}
  • (card games) 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.
  • (architecture) 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.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 20, author=Nathan Rabin, work=The Onion AV Club
  • , title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992) , passage=“Marge Gets A Job” opens with the foundation of the Simpson house tilting perilously to one side, making the family homestead look like the suburban equivalent of the Leaning Tower Of Pisa. }}
  • A donation or legacy appropriated to support a charitable institution, and constituting a permanent fund; endowment.
  • That which is founded, or established by endowment; an endowed institution or charity.
  • (cosmetics) Cosmetic cream roughly skin-colored, designed to make the face appear uniform in color and texture.
  • A basis for social bodies or intellectual disciplines.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Boundary problems , passage=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.

    Derived terms

    * foundation stone

    Synonyms

    *(act of founding) establishment *groundwall

    Antonyms

    *(act of founding) abolition, dissolution, ruination