Foundry

How to spell foundry

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce foundry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does foundry mean?

1. nounA workshop or factory where metal is melted and cast into shaped objects.

Foundry in a sentence

• The old iron foundry on the riverbank closed decades ago.

• Molten bronze is poured into moulds at the foundry each morning.

Where does foundry come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the French fonderie, which named a place where metal is melted and cast, built on the verb fondre, meaning 'to melt'. That French verb descends in turn from the Latin fundere, which literally meant 'to pour' or 'to pour out', the same root that gives us 'fuse', 'infuse' and 'refund'. English adopted 'foundry' in the early 1600s, just as metal casting was becoming an organised industrial trade, to describe the workshop where molten iron, brass or bronze was poured into moulds. The 'found' inside the word is therefore unrelated to finding anything; it is the older verb 'to found' meaning 'to cast metal', which English had already borrowed from the same Latin source. Keeping that pouring-and-melting origin in mind helps explain the otherwise puzzling -dry ending: it is 'found' plus the place-naming suffix '-ry', not a misspelling of 'dry'.

How the word is built

• found- (from Latin fundere: to pour, melt)
• -ry (suffix denoting a place of activity or trade)