foundation

Noun

1. The act of founding, fixing, establishing, or beginning to erect.
   • The foundation of his institute has been wrought with difficulty.

   Synonyms: establishment

   Antonyms: abolition dissolution ruination

2. That upon which anything is founded; that on which anything stands, and by which it is supported; the lowest and supporting layer of a superstructure; underbuilding.
   • Aye Madam to be sure that is the Provoking circumstance—without Foundation—yes yes—there's the mortification indeed—for when a slanderous story is believed against one—there certainly is no comfort like the...
   • Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University...

   Synonyms: basis groundwork underbuilding underframework

3. The result of the work to begin something; that which stabilizes and allows an enterprise or system to develop.
   • The implication is that the Gandhian model of growth is possible, now that Nehru's investment strategy had already laid a strong foundation for economic growth. - 2006, K P Yadav, Economic Planning And Restructuring,...

   Synonyms: groundwork platform stage

4. In solitaire or patience games, one of the piles of cards that the player attempts to build, usually holding all cards of a suit in ascending order.
5. The lowest and supporting part or member of a wall, including the base course and footing courses; in a frame house, the whole substructure of masonry.
   • The foundations of this construction have been laid out.
   • “Marge Gets A Job” opens with the foundation of the Simpson house tilting perilously to one side, making the family homestead look like the suburban equivalent of the Leaning Tower Of Pisa. - 2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin,...

   Synonyms: base groundwall

6. A donation or legacy appropriated to support a charitable institution, and constituting a permanent fund; endowment.
7. That which is founded, or established by endowment; an endowed institution or charity.
   • The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is the parent organization of the Wiktionary collaborative project.
8. Cosmetic cream roughly skin-colored, designed to make the face appear uniform in color and texture.
9. A basis for social bodies or intellectual disciplines.
   • Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.[…]But as a foundation for...