Which to use
“founder” and “foundry” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,233
- “founder” frequency rank
- #19,091
- “foundry” frequency rank
- 22324
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | founder | foundry |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | One who founds or establishes (a company, project, organisation, state, etc.). | A facility that melts metals in special furnaces and pours the molten metal into molds to make products. Foundries are usually specified according to the type of metal dealt with: iron foundry, brass foundry, etc. |
Where the eye mixes founder and foundry
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses founder with foundry
A purely visual mix-up. founder (/ˈfaʊn.dɚ/) and foundry (/ˈfaʊn.dɹi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22324, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
founder is recorded at frequency rank #3,233, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfaʊn.dɚ/. foundry is at rank #19,091, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfaʊn.dɹi/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 22324, this pair ranks #417,410 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of founder vs foundry
Shared letters: dfnoru. Private to "founder": e. Private to "foundry": y.
"founder" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC · "foundry" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "founder" and "foundry" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "founder" or "foundry" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "founder" and "foundry" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "founder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "foundry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #417,410 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "founder" and "foundry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fondly vs foundry". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #417,410 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.