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fundament

fun·da·ment/ˈfʌn.də.mənt/noun

fundament is a noun meaning “Foundation” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-U-N-D-A-M-E-N-T and has 3 syllables (fun·da·ment), and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fundament is fundaments.

What does fundament mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Foundation.

  2. 2

    The bottom; the buttocks or anus.

    ANOTHER defect that new-born infants are liable to is, to have their fundaments closed up; by which they can never evacuate the new excrements engendered by the milk they suck […]

  3. 3

    The underlying basis or principle for a theoretical or mathematical system.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce fundament?

  • US /ˈfʌn.də.mənt/
  • Australia /ˈfan.də.mənt/

Fundament has 3 syllables, split fun·da·ment in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-fundament.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of fundament

  • fundaments plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is fundament?

Fundament appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 106,501st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Fundament in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense foundation:

LanguageWords
Spanishfundamento

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does fundament come from?

From Middle English, from Old French fundement, fondement, from Latin fundāmentum (“foundation”), from fundō (“to lay the bottom, to found”). Doublet of fondamento.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).