Etymologically
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foundry

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈfaʊn.dɹi/[1]

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]

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