noun
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a spring that is the source of a stream
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a principal or original source
Etymology
Origin of fountainhead
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mr. Brady “couldn’t see it then,” Mr. Anderson writes, “but this reframing would become the foundation of all his future triumphs . . . and the fountainhead of all his greatest trials.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
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
Yet bordering countries, as well as some in the wider region, fear a Taliban-led state could pose a potent threat — as an exporter of extremism, or a fountainhead of refugee flight, or both.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2021
In one of the federal judiciary’s longest and most prolific careers, Judge Keith, a Democrat, was a fountainhead of regional rulings with national implications.
From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2019
The only fountainhead which had once been near and which had once sung loudly within him, now murmured softly in the distance.
From "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
