source

From Middle English sours, from Old French sorse (“rise, beginning, spring, source”), from sors, past participle of sordre, sourdre, from Latin surgere (“to rise”). See surge.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /sɔɹs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sɔːs/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /so(ː)ɹs/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /soəs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)s
• Homophone: sauce (non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)

source (plural sources)

1. The person, place, or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.

   The accused refused to reveal the source of the illegal drugs she was selling.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:

     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.

   • 2013 July 6, “The rise of smart beta”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8843, page 68:

     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.

2. Spring; fountainhead; wellhead; any collection of water on or under the surface of the ground in which a stream originates.

   The main sources of the Euphrates River are the Karasu and Murat Rivers.

   • 2013 August 16, John Vidal, “Dams endanger ecology of Himalayas”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 10, page 8:

     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.

3. A reporter's informant.
4. (computing) Source code.
5. (electronics) The name of one terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).

• wellspring

• resource

• target

source (third-person singular simple present sources, present participle sourcing, simple past and past participle sourced)

1. (chiefly US) To obtain or procure: used especially of a business resource.
2. (transitive) To find information about (a quotation)'s source (from which it comes): to find a citation for.

• (mainly US): sourcing
• (mainly US): insourcing
• (mainly US): outsourcing

• source in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• source in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• 'course, Couser, Crouse, Crusoe, cerous, coures, course, crouse

Old French sorse (“rise, beginning, spring, source”), from sors, past participle of sordre, sourdre, from Latin surgere (“to rise”). See surge.

• IPA^(key): /suʁs/

• audio

  (file)

source f (plural sources)

1. source, spring (of water)

source

1. first-person singular present indicative of sourcer
2. third-person singular present indicative of sourcer
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of sourcer
4. first-person singular present subjunctive of sourcer
5. second-person singular imperative of sourcer

• “source” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• coeurs, cœurs
• coures
• course, coursé
• écrous