[f. FOUNDER sb.2 + -SHIP.] The position of a founder.
1563. Abp. Parker, Corr. (1853), 252. I would wish a better in his place to govern the house, and he to hold him in his foundership if he will.
1622. Callis, Stat. Sewers (1647), 213. Many Inheritances I found in reason freed from these Taxes and Lays, as Tythes in Spiritual hands … Presentations, Founderships.
1841. Fraser’s Mag., XXIII. Jan., 92. There seems to be a patriotic schism between the joint authors as to the foundership of the Temperance societies.
1869. H. Hayman, The Antiquity of the Homeric Poems, in Contemp. Rev., XII. Sept., 67. It arrays Herakles as the athlete, contending not absolutely with the weapons of nature, but with a costume and equipment but one remove from them; and harmonizes with his foundership of the Olympic games, of which the legend is so prominent in Pindar.
