Etimology
From Middle English sours, from Old French sorse (“rise, beginning, spring, source”), from sors, past participle of sordre, sourdre, from Latin surgō (“to rise”), which is composed of sub- (“up from below”) + regō (“lead, rule”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃réǵeti (“to straighten; right”), from the root *h₃reǵ-. See surge.
noun
source (plural sources)
The person, place, or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.
Spring; fountainhead; wellhead; any collection of water on or under the surface of the ground in which a stream originates.
A reporter's informant.
(computing) Source code.
(electronics) The name of one terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).
(graph theory) A node in a directed graph whose edges all go out from it; one with no entering edges.
(mathematics, category theory) The domain of a function; the object which a morphism points from.
Examples
The accused refused to reveal the source of the illegal drugs she was selling.
More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.
Investors face a quandary. Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive. Equities have suffered two big bear markets since 2000 and are wobbling again. It is hardly surprising that pension funds, insurers and endowments are searching for new sources of return.
The main sources of the Euphrates River are the Karasu and Murat Rivers.
Most of the Himalayan rivers have been relatively untouched by dams near their sources. Now the two great Asian powers, India and China, are rushing to harness them as they cut through some of the world's deepest valleys.
Coordinate term: target
Related words
synonyms
wellspring
antonyms
(antonym(s) of "graph theory"): sink
hyponyms
crowdsource
datasource
primary source
secondary source
source code
tertiary source
related terms
resource
verb
source (third-person singular simple present sources, present participle sourcing, simple past and past participle sourced)
To obtain or procure: used especially of a business resource.
(transitive) To find information about (a quotation)'s source (from which it comes): to find a citation for.
Examples
But the point when it would have to look at alternative new-build vehicles was always looming large, and there would inevitably be a finite number of Class 66s it could source from elsewhere, and a limit to other locomotives it could re-power.