Word.ws English Dictionary

found

/ˈfæʊ̯nd/UK/ˈfaʊ̯nd/

found is the simple past and past participle of find.

Verb (1)

found (third-person singular simple present founds, present participle founding, simple past and past participle founded)

  1. (transitive) To start (an institution or organization).
    • “[…] That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh. Her own father recognised it when he bereft her of all power in the great business he founded. …”1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad
    Synonyms:
    establish
  2. (transitive) To begin building.
  3. (transitive) To use as a foundation; to base.
    • Being left alone with him after they had dined, he obſerved, that however ſtrongly he was convinced of Zeluco’s being the writer of the letter, yet as he had had the precaution to diſguiſe his hand-writing, it would be fruitleſs to found any legal proſecution upon that circumſtance.1789 May 27, [John Moore], chapter XXII, in Zeluco. Various Views of Human Nature, Taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic., volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell...
    • […] being now out of print, I shall use the freedom to give an extract from it, and in an Appendix to this Pamphlet (No. II.), republish one of the Tables that Author refers to, which will shew the facts he founded his reasoning upon, and the nature of the deductions which were the result of his...1827, [Alexander] Dirom, Remarks on Free Trade, and on the State of the British Empire, Edinburgh: […] Cadell & Co., […], Edinburgh; and Longman, Rees, & Co., London, page 36

Verb (2)

found (third-person singular simple present founds, present participle founding, simple past and past participle founded)

  1. (transitive) To melt, especially of metal or glass in an industrial setting.
  2. (transitive) To form by melting a metal and pouring it into a mould; to cast.
    • Whereof to found their engines.1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

Meaning of find

Verb

find (third-person singular simple present finds, present participle finding, simple past found or (dialectal) fand, past participle found or (dialectal) fand or (archaic) founden)

  1. (transitive) To encounter or discover by accident; to happen upon.
    • I found this shell on the beach.
  2. (transitive) To encounter or discover something being searched for; to locate.
    • I found my car keys. They were under the couch.
    Synonyms:
    localize, pinpoint
    Antonyms:
    lose, miss
  3. (ditransitive) To locate on behalf of another.
    • I found you a new place to live
  4. (ditransitive) To discover by study or experiment directed to an object or end.
    • Water is found to be a compound substance.
  5. (transitive) To gain, as the object of desire or effort.
    • to find leisure; to find means
  6. (transitive) To attain to; to arrive at; to acquire.
    • Looks like he found a new vehicle for himself!

See all 17 meanings of find

Noun (1)

found (uncountable)

  1. Food and lodging; board.
    • I'll only give you the usual payment—say five hundred dollars a year, and found." / "And—what?" / "Found—that is, board, you know, and clothing, of course, also.1872, James De Mille, The Cryptogram, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2009
    • He moves north through small settlements and farms, working for day wages and found.1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, page 5

Noun (2)

found (plural not attested)

  1. (no plural, transitive) The period of time when a furnace is at its hottest; the interval in which the furnace is meant to fully melt glass.

Noun (3)

found (plural founds)

  1. (transitive) A thin, single-cut file for comb-makers.

Synonyms of found

Antonyms

Forms of found

Verb
third-person singular presentfounds
present participlefounding
past participlefounded
pastfounded
second-person singular present (archaic)foundest
second-person singular past (archaic)foundedst
third-person singular present (archaic)foundeth
Noun
pluralfounds

Origin of found

See find.

From Middle English founden, from Old French founder (Modern French: fonder), from Latin fundāre. Compare fund.

From Middle English founden, from Old French fondre, from Latin fundere. Cognate with Spanish fundir and hundir, and French fondre.

Words formed from found

Phrases with found

31 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with found

45 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about found

What does found mean?
Found means food and lodging; board.
What is found the simple past and past participle of?
Found is the simple past and past participle of find.
What part of speech is found?
Found can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce found?
Found is pronounced /ˈfaʊ̯nd/ (UK).
What is the plural of found?
The plural of found is founds.

Words near found in the dictionary

  1. foulsome
  2. foulé
  3. foumart
  4. foumarts
  5. foun'
  6. found
  7. found a friendly bush
  8. found another gear
  9. found art
  10. found families
  11. found family

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: found (page history and authors); find (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-found.ogg.

Cite this entry: “found.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/found. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.