Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A spring that is the source or head of a stream.
  • noun A chief and copious source; an originator.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A fountain or spring from which a stream of water flows; the head or source of a stream; hence, primary source in general; original.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun an abundant source.
  • noun the source of water from which a stream arises.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a spring that is the source of a river
  • noun an abundant source of knowledge, etc.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an abundant source
  • noun the source of water from which a stream arises

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Since that day, more than forty years ago, Greenspan has become the figurehead (not the "fountainhead" - figurehead) for a new form of "establishment radicalism," a white-collar extremism which that has hijacked American economic policy for the last thirty years.

    Greenspan's Testimony: Will the 'Maestro' Face the Music? 2010

  • Since that day, more than forty years ago, Greenspan has become the figurehead (not the "fountainhead" - figurehead) for a new form of "establishment radicalism," a white-collar extremism which that has hijacked American economic policy for the last thirty years.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com RJ 2010

  • Since that day, more than forty years ago, Greenspan has become the figurehead (not the "fountainhead" - figurehead) for a new form of "establishment radicalism," a white-collar extremism which that has hijacked American economic policy for the last thirty years.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com RJ 2010

  • The honor is well-deserved, for Holland may fairly be called the fountainhead of modern international law, and has produced many of its best expounders, from Grotius and Bynkershoek to Asser.

    Fighting For Peace Henry Van Dyke 1892

  • The growing number of spin-off IDEs that point to Eclipse as their fountainhead is a testament to Eclipse's capability.

    Linux news from LinuxWorld.com 2010

  • I wonder if Rand is the 'fountainhead' of the nonfiction business books, many of which present themselves as complete.

    Archive 2007-09-01 Fred 2007

  • I wonder if Rand is the 'fountainhead' of the nonfiction business books, many of which present themselves as complete.

    the non-academic success of Atlas Shrugged Fred 2007

  • Attempting to hype him as the fountainhead of all right-thinking, truth, and scientific process will still not render him the messiah. sifto77

    Brennan: Some Guantanamo detainees will go to Yemen 2010

  • Sandisk has allied itself in NAND with Toshiba, once a DRAM fountainhead and technology ally of Siemens and IBM. Toshiba operates the joint venture factories from which Sandisk obtains most of its NAND chips and is no friend to Samsung.

    Semiconductors Are Halfway Through A Correction Rick Whittington 2010

  • "Don Quixote is the first modern novel, perhaps the most eternal novel ever written and certainly the fountainhead of European and American fiction; here you have Gogol and Dostoevsky, Dickens and Nabokov, Borges and Bellow, Sterne and Diderot in their genetic nakedness, once more taking to the road with the gentleman and the squire, believing the world is what we read and discovering that the world reads us."

    Richard C. Morais: Our Knight In Shining Armor Richard C. Morais 2010

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