Founder v.

[a. OF. fondrer to plunge to the bottom, submerge; also intr. to collapse, fall in ruins:—f. L. fundus bottom.

  The simple vb. fondrer appears to be rare in OF.; the compounds esfondrer, enfondrer, are common, and occur in most of the senses below; cf. AFOUNDER, ENFOUNDER, of which founder in some uses may be an aphetic form. The r in the OF. vb. is variously accounted for: see Hatz.-Darm., s.v. effondrer, Körting, Lat.-Rom.-Wb., s.vv. exfundulare, infundulare; a popular Lat. type *fundorāre may have existed, f. fundora (see Du Cange) pl. of fundus neut., whence Fr. fonds, FOUNCE.]

  † 1.  trans. To burst or smash (something) in; to force a passage through. Obs.

13[?].  Coer de L., 5266.

c. 1330.  R. Brunne, Chron. (1725), 183.

  † 2.  To send to the bottom, cause to be swallowed up or engulfed. Obs.

13[?].  E. E. Allit. P., B. 1013.

1490.  Caxton, Eneydos, xxvii. 97. Haue no mercy ne pyte of ony man that lyueth, foundre & droune altogider [F. eflondres tout] in-to the botome of the see.

  3.  intr. Of the earth, a building, etc.: To fall down, give way.

1489.  Caxton, Faytes of A., II. xxxv. 153. Hyt [the toure] foundred and sanke doune in to the grounde.

a. 1697.  Aubrey, Wilts (Royal Soc. MS.), 106 (Halliw.). A quantity of earth foundred, and fell downe a vast depth.

1830.  Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 274. We find that the cliffs of Bawdsey and Felixtow are foundering slowly.

  † b.  trans. To undermine. Also fig. Obs.

1655.  Fuller, The Church-History of Britain, III. iv. § 13. King John having his soul battered without, with forrain fears, and foundred within by the falsenesse of his Subjects, sunk on a sudden beneath himself, to an act of unworthy submission, and subjection to the Pope.

a. 1656.  Ussher, Ann. V. (1658), 60. The river overflowing with continual raines, came up into a part of the city, and foundering the wall thereof 20 furlongs in length, bare it down.

  4.  intr. (Chiefly of a horse or its rider.) To stumble violently, fall helplessly to the ground, collapse; to fall lame; occas. to sink or stick fast in mire or bog).

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Knt’s. T., 1829.

c. 1450.  Golagros & Gaw., 1021.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, X. xiv. 155.

c. 1560.  A. Scott, Poems (S.T.S.), ii. 161.

1563.  Homilies, II. Rogation Week, IV. (1859), 498–9. It is a good deed of mercy to amend the dangerous and noisome ways, whereby thy poor neighbour, sitting on his seely weak beast, foundereth not in the deep thereof.

1713.  Steele, Guard., No. 132, 12 Aug., ¶ 6. The man is a thick-skull’d puppy, and founders like a horse.

1875.  F. Hall, A Night of Adventures, in Lippincott’s Mag., XVI. Dec., 749/1. The guide had strayed off the ford, and I was foundering in a quicksand.

1880.  Muirhead, Gaius, III. § 219. When a man has … driven another’s horse so hard as to cause it to founder.

  5.  trans. To cause to break down or go lame; esp. to cause (a horse) to have the founder, thus disabling him.

1593.  Nashe, 4 Lett. Confut., 51. A broken-winded galdbacke Iade, that hath borne up his head in his time, but now is quite foundred and tired.

1608.  Yorksh. Trag., I. viii.

1674.  N. Cox, Gentl. Recreat., I. (1677), 97–8. Shun, as much as you can, hunting in hard frosty weather, for so you will surbate or founder your Hounds, and make them lose their Claws.

1683.  W. Hacke, Collect. Orig. Voy., II. (1699), 3. We set out, and pursued our Journey along a very bad Path, which with our being necessitated to wade the River between fifty and sixty Times, almost founder’d our Men.

1732.  Gay, Achilles, I. That good creature is now so distress’d for the loss of me, that he will quite founder himself with galloping from place to place to look after me.

1884.  W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 74.

  b.  fig.

1589.  R. Harvey, Pl. Perc., 18. Such firie Agues fall soonest into a surfeit, and founder themselues with their intemperate behauiour.

1645.  Milton, Colast. (1851), 365. He does nothing for above four page, but founder himself to and fro in his own objections.

1658.  Bramhall, Consecr. Bps., vi. 148. And so your Consequence, [Consequently that of Naggeshead might passe], is foundered of all four, and can neither passe nor repasse.

  ¶ c.  Confused with FOUND v.⁵: To benumb.

1562.  [see FOUND v.⁵].

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, III. xix. 342. The Oyle … is good … for members that are benummed or foundered.

  6.  intr. Of a vessel: To fill with water and sink, go to the bottom. [= OF. s’enfondrer: cf. sense 2.]

1600.  Hakluyt, Voy., III. 398. Already she had receiued in much water, insomuch that she beganne to founder.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe, I. i. We had a good ship, but she was deep loaden, and wallowed in the sea, that the seamen every now and then cried out, she would founder.

1881.  Sir W. H. White, Naval Archit., 13. Ships founder when the entry of water into the interior causes a serious and fatal loss of floating power.

  b.  fig. To ‘come to grief,’ be wrecked.

1613.  Shaks., Hen. VIII., III. ii. 40.

1816.  Keatinge, Trav. (1817), I. 56, note. Spain began to founder from the loss of the Low Countries; but a first-rate ship does not go down like a wherry.

  7.  trans. To cause (a ship) to fill with water and sink; to send to the bottom.

1659.  D. Pell, Impr. Sea, 305. When a vessel is, or comes once to bee foundered, there is no possibility of her being helped up. [But this may be sense 6]

1748.  F. Smith, Voy. Disc. N.-W. Pass., I. 52. From their Hardness if touched, are capable of pierceing a Ship under her Bends, so foundering her.

1893.  G. Allen, Scallywag, III. 110. They knew only be inference that a great ship was being foundered and ground to pieces by some invisible force within a few yards of them.

  8.  Golf. To hit (a ball) into the ground.

1880.  ‘Capt. Crawley,’ Football, etc., 96. The young Golfer … is likely to founder the ball, or drive it only a comparatively short distance.

  ¶ 9.  erron. = Fr. foudre: To burst (into tears).

c. 1477.  Caxton, Jason, 5. The damoiseau Iason notwithstandyng that he was yet a child began thenne to foundre in teeris right habondantly. [Often in Caxton.]

c. 1530.  Ld. Berners, Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814), 51. The king foundred all in teeres.

  Hence Foundering vbl. sb. and ppl. a.

1548.  Hall, Chron., Hen. VI. (an. 13), 127. Matthew Gouth, by founderyng of his horsse, was taken.

1602.  Warner, Alb. Eng., IX. liii. (1612), 238. No one thing quailes Religion more than foundring Presbytrie.

1614.  Markham, Cheap Husb., I. li. (1668), 62. Of Foundring in the Feet there be two sorts, a dry and a wet.

1802.  C. James, Milit. Dict., s.v. Foundering in the feet, which is an universal rheumatism, or defluxion of humours upon the sinews of a horse’s feet…. Foundering in the chest, a disorder which may be occasioned by crudities collected in the stomach, or by other infirmities which obstruct the free action of the lungs.

1813.  Scott, Rokeby, I. xvii.