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What is the difference between foundation and underlie?

foundation | underlie |

As a noun foundation

is the act of founding, fixing, establishing, or beginning to erect.

As a verb underlie is

to lie in a position directly beneath.

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

    underlie

    English

    Alternative forms

    * underly

    Verb

  • To lie in a position directly beneath.
    • A stratum of clay underlies the surface gravel.
  • To lie under or beneath.
  • To serve as a basis of; form the foundation of.
    • a doctrine underlying a theory
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz
    • , title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
  • To be subject to; be liable to answer, as a charge or challenge.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • The knight of Ivanhoe underlies the challenge of Brian der Bois Guilbert.
  • (mining) To underlay.