foundered

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of founder.

   The freighter foundered in heavy seas and went down within minutes.

   Negotiations foundered over disagreements about the disputed border.

   Note

   Mostly an intransitive past: ships foundered, talks foundered, and nothing was done to them. The transitive use, sinking a vessel, is archaic, so "the ship was foundered" now sounds old-fashioned. The passive is still natural with animals, where it shades into the adjective for a lame horse. Keep it apart from the noun founder, one who establishes a company or state: that person founded something and never foundered it.

2. 2
   adjective

   Unable to walk normally; lame, typically from sore or damaged feet.

   The foundered pony stood with its weight thrown back onto its hind legs.

   A foundered animal cannot keep pace and must be rested.

   Similarlame, crippled

   Oppositesound

   Note

   A stable word, used of horses rather than people. It sits before the noun (a foundered horse) or after be (his horse was foundered). In that second position it blurs into the passive of the verb, where to founder a horse is to lame it through inflammation and soreness in the feet or limbs. A limping person is lame, never foundered.

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