Back to the Basics: Words Built on FUND

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The Latin root fund means “foundation,” “bottom,” “basis.”

MONDAY Fundament (Noun), Foundation (Noun)

When you get to the bottom of things, you arrive at the fundament. The noun fundament refers to the physical or conceptual grounds for something, the basis on which it rests. In some archaic or humorous texts, you may see fundament used to mean “buttocks”—as in “he deserves a good kick in the fundament!”

More concretely, a building’s foundation is its fundament. A pedestal might serve as the fundament for a bust or statue. 

Ideas also have fundaments or foundations. For example, Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species had, as its foundation, the theory of natural selection. Species evolve as those organisms that are best adapted to their environments outsurvive and outproduce less fit individuals. Without the theory of natural selection, there would be no mechanism to account for how species come to be.

TUESDAY Fundamental (Adjective), Fundamentals (Noun), Fundamentalism  (Noun)

In a message to the United States Congress in 1961, President John F. Kennedy wrote “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.” Something is fundamental when it is essential, primary, the basis for all else.  Kennedy saw that America’s success arose, first and foremost, not from its wealth or weaponry but from the collective intelligence fostered by education.

Sometimes, you’ll hear fundamentals used as a plural noun. Athletes refer to the fundamentals of basketball or baseball.  Entrepreneurs refer to the fundamentals of their industries or the economy.

WEDNESDAY Found (Verb), Founder (Noun, Verb)

To found something, whether it is a club, a business, or a country, is to bring it into being—to establish it. Silicon Valley is full of founders of tech businesses. Universities celebrate the founders of their institutions. Americans often idealize the founders of the United States as an independent democracy that broke away from British rule.

But founder has another, less triumphant meaning: to founder is to sink or to fall apart.  A ship in a storm may founder and go to the bottom of the sea.  Sometimes founder is confused with its nearly identical twin “flounder,” which is not only the name of a type of fish but is also a verb that means “to struggle clumsily.” So a person who stumbles over something might flounder and then founder.

THURSDAY Fund (noun, verb)  Crowdfund (Verb) Refund (noun, verb) Defund (verb)

To fund an enterprise is to provide the resources it needs, usually money. Donors fund political campaigns. The money itself constitutes the fund or funds needed for the enterprise to run successfully. In the age of the internet, crowdfunding has become a way for various causes to raise money. Online appeals can reach huge numbers of potential donors, so that even if individual donors contribute modest amounts, significant funds can be raised.

The prefix “re” means “again” or “back.” To refund someone’s payment is to give the money back. Unsatisfied customers are apt to seek refunds when purchases do not meet their expectations.  The prefix “de” means “off” or “from.” To defund is to revoke financial resources previously allocated. Defunding is often political in intent, as governments, politicians, or activists seek to undercut enterprises or groups they disagree with.

FRIDAY Profound (Adjective), Profundity (Noun)

The prefix “pro” means “forward,” and when we combine it with the root fund, we get profound, which means something like “going (forward) to the bottom.” We tend to describe a thought as profound when we feel it gets to “the bottom” of things, to reveal some fundamental truth. Similarly, a profound feeling is something we experience in the deepest part of ourselves. That quality of depth, whether of thought or of feeling is profundity.