foundry

Etymology

It is borrowed from French fonderie,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from fondre (“to melt, cast”) and the suffix -erie,^[3][4][2] which is from Latin fundō (“to pour, melt, cast”).^[7][8] The Shorter Oxford and ODE instead derive it from English found + -ry, from the verb meaning to cast metal, perhaps after the French word;^[9][10] an earlier form was foundery.^[10][9] Etymonline and Hoad trace the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *gheu- (“to pour”),^[7][8] from which Old English also had gēotan (“to pour”).^[8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The art or business of casting metal, or the castings themselves: 1601, in P. Holland's translation of Pliny's Historie of the World.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the sense "articles produced by founders" to 1536,^[3] and Dictionary.com gives 1595–1605.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the craft of founding and its products; from the 1640s it also named the building where the work was done.^[7][2] John Evelyn used it in this sense in 1645.^[2] The establishment could cast metal or glass,^[2][3] and a type foundry cast printing type.^[3] In late 19th- and early 20th-century slang a foundry was a shop, especially a pork butcher's, for the noise of its sausage machine, and in American slang a restaurant.^[12]

Timeline

• 1601 – the art of casting metal; castings.^[2]
• 1645 – a building where metal or glass is cast.^[2][7]
• 1908 – slang, a restaurant (US).^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building or works where metal or glass is melted and cast into shapes: an iron foundry.^[3][13][2]
2. The craft or process of casting metal, or the castings produced.^[3][2]
3. A type foundry, where printing type is cast.^[3]

Related words

• found
• fuse
• fusion

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins