founding father

founding father noun: a man who founded something.

Image: John Trumbull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

founding father (plural founding fathers)

Founding Father (plural Founding Fathers)

(US, in plural) Any of the men who were responsible for the founding of the United States of America, especially political leaders who drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution and military leaders who fought in the American Revolutionary War.
- At the heart of it, I thought of the Great Society as an extension of the Bill of Rights. When our fundamental American rights were set forth by the Founding Fathers, they reflected the concerns of a people who sought freedom in their time. But in our time a broadened concept of freedom requires...1971, Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 104

man who founded something — see also founding mother, founder: peletak dasar, bapak pendiri

plural	founding fathers
plural	Founding Fathers

Coined by American politician Warren G. Harding in his keynote speech at the 1916 Republican National Convention, when he was a U.S. senator.

What does founding father mean?: Founding father means a man who founded something.
What is founding father in Indonesian?: Founding father in Indonesian is peletak dasar, bapak pendiri. See Founding father meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is founding father?: Founding father is a noun.
What is the plural of founding father?: The plural of founding father is founding fathers.

Adapted from Wiktionary: founding father (page history and authors); Founding Father (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: 2026-09-02

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