Word.ws English Dictionary

foundresses

foundresses is the plural of foundress.

Meaning of foundress

Noun (1)

foundress (plural foundresses)

  1. (dated) A female founder (“one who founds or establishes”).
    • But whether he departed without the French kings conſent or diſaſſent, he deceiued in his expectacion, and in maner in diſpaire, retourned againe to the Lady Margaret his firſt fooliſh foundreſſe.1569, Richard Grafton, “Henry the Seuenth”, in A Chronicle at Large and Meere History of the Affayres of Englande […], volume II, London: […] Henry Denham, […], for Richarde Tottle and Humffrey Toye...
  2. (specifically) A female animal which establishes a colony.
    • [T]he comparison of multiple inseminations and multiple foundress associations showed that the number of foundresses, a component of migration structure, affects the potential for social evolution more strongly than the number of inseminations per foundress, a component of the mating structure.1987, Michael J. Wade, Felix J. Breden, “Kin Selection in Complex Groups: Mating Structure, Migration Structure, and the Evolution of Social Behaviors”, in B. Diane Chepko-Sade, Zuleyma Tang Halpin...

Noun (2)

foundress (plural foundresses)

  1. (obsolete, rare) A female founder (“one who founds or casts metals”).
    • The great bell of my heart is crack'd, and never / Can ring in tune againe, till't be nevv caſt / By one only skilfull Foundreſſe.c. 1635–1636 (date written), Iohn Ford [i.e., John Ford], The Fancies, Chast and Noble: […], London: […] E[lizabeth] P[urslowe] for Henry Seile, […], published 1638, →OCLC, Act III, page 35

Questions about foundresses

What is foundresses the plural of?
Foundresses is the plural of foundress.

Words near foundresses in the dictionary

  1. foundlinghood
  2. foundlings
  3. foundouk
  4. foundouks
  5. foundress
  6. foundresses
  7. foundries
  8. foundrous
  9. foundry
  10. foundryman
  11. foundrymen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foundresses (page history and authors); foundress (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.

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