English Dictionary
◊ FOUNDATION
foundation
n 1: the basis on which something is grounded; "there is little
foundation for his objections"
2: an institution supported by an endowment
3: lowest supporting part of a structure; "it was built on a
base of solid rock"; "he stood at the foot of the tower"
[syn: {base}, {fundament}, {foot}, {groundwork}, {substructure},
{understructure}]
4: the fundamental assumptions underlying an explanation; "the
whole argument rested on a basis of conjecture" [syn: {basis},
{base}, {fundament}, {groundwork}, {cornerstone}]
5: a woman's undergarment worn to give shape to the contours of
the body [syn: {foundation garment}]
6: starting something for the first time [syn: {initiation}, {founding},
{institution}, {origination}, {creation}, {instauration}]
English Computing Dictionary
◊ FOUNDATION
foundation
The axiom of foundation states that the membership relation is
well founded, i.e. that any non-empty collection Y of sets has
a member y which is disjoint from Y. This rules out sets
which contain themselves (directly or indirectly).