Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Source

Source (sōrs), n. [OE. sours, OF. sourse, surse, sorse, F. source, fr. OF. sors, p. p. of OF. sordre, surdre, sourdre, to spring forth or up, F. sourdre, fr. L. surgere to lift or raise up, to spring up. See Surge, and cf. Souse to plunge or swoop as a bird upon its prey.] 1. The act of rising; a rise; an ascent. [Obs.]

Therefore right as an hawk upon a sours Up springeth into the air, right so prayers . . . Maken their sours to Goddes ears two. Chaucer.

2. The rising from the ground, or beginning, of a stream of water or the like; a spring; a fountain.

Where as the Poo out of a welle small Taketh his firste springing and his sours. Chaucer.

Kings that rule Behind the hidden sources of the Nile. Addison.

3. That from which anything comes forth, regarded as its cause or origin; the person from whom anything originates; first cause.

This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself. Locke.

The source of Newton's light, of Bacon's sense. Pope.

Syn. — See Origin.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.