fountainhead

American  

[foun-tn-hed] / ˈfaʊn tnˌhɛd /

noun

1. a fountain or spring from which a stream flows; the head or source of a stream.

2. a chief source of anything.

   a fountainhead of information.

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fountainhead British  

/ ˈfaʊntɪnˌhɛd /

noun

1. a spring that is the source of a stream

2. a principal or original source

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Etymology

Origin of fountainhead

First recorded in 1575–85; fountain + head

Example Sentences

Muslims attached to the Gyanvapi mosque said the court-appointed surveyors had mistaken a fountainhead in the water tank as a Hindu idol and motifs were flowers embedded in Persian design.

From Reuters • May 20, 2022

That’s when a theater kid from Compton, Calif., flew some 3,000 miles from home to begin his freshman year at “The Mecca,” what Howard students call the historically Black fountainhead of talent.

From Washington Post • May 11, 2022

Junior set aside millions of dollars for the gardens, reflecting pools and art — works like Rene Paul Chambellan’s bronze fountainhead sculptures of mermaids and tritons in the Channel Gardens.

From New York Times • Apr. 15, 2020

It would mean acknowledging that Aryans or their Vedic culture were not the singular fountainhead of Indian civilisation and that its earliest sources lay elsewhere.

From BBC • Dec. 30, 2018

I think that nowhere is the black continent’s wealth and the natural beauty of its people richer than in Ghana, which is so proudly the very fountainhead of Pan-Africanism.

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey