source
/sɔɹs/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.15 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The person, place, or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.
noun
Spring; fountainhead; wellhead; any collection of water on or under the surface of the ground in which a stream originates.
noun
A reporter's informant.
noun
noun
The name of one terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).
noun
The domain of a function; the object which a morphism points from.
Example Sentences
- "The accused refused to reveal the source of the illegal drugs she was selling."
- "To this day I do not know the source of the terrible screams that night in the labyrinth. Perhaps an owl. Perhaps something else..."
- "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."
- "The O-erh-ch'i-ssu River begins in the southern section of the lofty A-erh-t'ai Mountains of Sinkiang. This river is over 2,900 kilometers long and has a large delta area rich in minerals such as gold, iron, copper, lead, zinc, mercury, mica, crystal and "ping-chou-shih" [3056 3166 4258 possibly cryolite]. At the source of the O-erh-ch'i-ssu River, the A-erh-t'ai Mountains reach more than 3,000 meters above sea level. The peaks of the mountains are covered with snow year-round, and rainfall is heavy in the summer."
Etymology
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-. Doublet of surge.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /sɔɹs/
- British English: /sɔːs/