Fund

How to spell fund

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fund

What does fund mean?

1. nounA sum of money saved or set aside for a particular purpose.
2. verbTo provide money for a project, organisation, or activity.

Fund in a sentence

• noun

  The charity set up a fund to rebuild the flooded homes.

• verb

  The council agreed to fund the new library extension.

• noun

  She paid into a pension fund every month for thirty years.

• verb

  Grants help fund research that companies will not pay for.

Where does fund come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word fund traces back to the Latin fundus, which literally meant 'the bottom of something' and, by extension, a 'foundation' or a 'piece of land'. From the same root English also inherited 'foundation' and 'profound', both of which carry the underlying idea of something at the base or depth. Fund entered English in the seventeenth century, at first meaning a 'bottom' or 'groundwork', and quickly took on the financial sense of a reserve of money set aside as a solid base to draw upon. The leap from physical foundation to monetary reserve made sense to early modern writers, who pictured savings as the firm ground on which finances rested. Because the spelling is short and phonetic, it preserves the Latin fund- cleanly with no silent letters to trip the writer.

How the word is built

• fund (from Latin fundus: bottom, foundation)