fountain

From Middle English [Term?]; from Old French fontaine (whence modern fontaine); from Late Latin fontana, from Latin fontanus, fontaneus, adjectives from fons (“source, spring”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈfaʊn.tn̩/[1]
  • (US) IPA^(key): [ˈfaʊn.ʔn̩]

• Audio (GA)

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fountain (plural fountains)

1. (originally) A natural source of water; a spring.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Esther 10:6:

     A little fountaine became a riuer, and there was light, & the Sunne, and much water: this riuer is Eſther, whō the King married and made Queene.

2. An artificial, usually ornamental, water feature (usually in a garden or public place) consisting of one or more streams of water originating from a statue or other structure.
3. The structure from which an artificial fountain can issue.
   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./4/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, OL 1519647W:

     As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.

4. A reservoir from which liquid can be drawn.
5. A source or origin of a flow (e.g., of favors or knowledge).
6. (heraldry) A roundel barry wavy argent and azure.
7. (juggling) A juggling pattern typically done with an even number of props where each prop is caught by the same hand that throws it.
8. (US) A soda fountain.

• fount
• wellspring

• font

fountain (third-person singular simple present fountains, present participle fountaining, simple past and past participle fountained)

1. (intransitive) To flow or gush as if from a fountain.

   Lava fountained from the volcano.

   • Tom Reamy, Blind Voices:

     The fireflies swept toward him from all directions, in streams and rivers and currents of light, a vortex a hundred yards across, spiraling into the brighter center. They met over his supine body like ocean breakers, cascading, fountaining into the air.

• fountain on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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