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There’s nothing fishy about flounder... the verb, that is. While the noun referring to a common food fish is of Scandinavian origin, the verb flounder, which dates to the late 16th century, is likely an alteration of an older verb, founder. The two verbs have been confused ever since. Today, founder is most often used as a synonym of fail, or, in contexts involving a waterborne vessel, as a word meaning “to fill with water and sink.” Formerly, it was also frequently applied when a horse stumbled badly and was unable to keep walking. It’s likely this sense of founder led to the original and now-obsolete meaning of flounder: “to stumble.” In modern use, flounder typically means “to struggle” or “to act clumsily”; the word lacks the finality of founder, which usually suggests complete collapse or failure, as that of a sinking ship.
Examples of flounder in a Sentence
Matthew Kayser, USA Today, 21 Oct. 2025
Based on a study of hundreds of its employees, an attempt to pinpoint what made people thrive versus flounder, Google determined that psychological safety was the most critical factor in high-performing teams.
—Christopher Kaufman, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
Bloomberg, Mercury News, 23 Oct. 2025
His father exists in the world, floundering about and getting high, but the larger and more potent existence that this man has, in your case, is in your stepson’s psyche.
—James Parker, The Atlantic, 21 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for flounder
Cite this Entry
“Flounder.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flounder. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
flounder
1 of 2 noun
flounder
2 of 2 verb
Noun
Middle English flounder "a flatfish"; of Scandinavian origin
Verb
probably an altered form of founder
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