ppl. a. [f. FOUND v.2]
1. Based, having a (specified) base or ground (with qualifying adverb). † Also without adv. = ‘well founded,’ well grounded, etc. (obs.).
1605. Shaks., Macb., III. iv. 22.
| Macb. Then comes my Fit againe: | |
| I had else beene perfect; | |
| Whole as the Marble, founded as the Rocke. |
1671. Milton, Samson, 1504. Chor. Thy hopes are not ill founded.
1771. Junius, Lett., lv. 291. I do not mean to lessen the force of such charges (supposing they were true); but to show that they are not founded.
1774. trans. Helvetius’ Child of Nature, I. 132. A young woman of your prudence must be founded in her behaviour.
1780. Burke, Sp. at Bristol, Wks. III. 398. Supply them with just and founded motives to disaffection.
1792. Anecd. W. Pitt, III. xliii. 152. If Ministers are founded in saying there is no sort of treaty with France, there is still a moment left; the point of honour is still safe.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 248. The defeated party complained loudly of foul play, of the rudeness of the populace, and of the partiality of the presiding magistrates; and these complaints were in many cases well founded.
2. Endowed, ‘on the foundation,’ rare.
1895. J. M. Bulloch, Hist. Aberdeen Univ., 99. The greater part of the founded members had been ‘quyte abolisched and out of use.’
