What is another word for fountain-head?

Pronunciation: [fˈa͡ʊntɪnhˈɛd] (IPA)

Fountain-head refers to the source or origin of something. This word can be replaced by a number of synonyms which convey a similar meaning. For instance, "root" refers to the basic foundation or beginning of something. "Origin" and "genesis" both indicate the source or starting point of something. "Wellspring" and "fount" both suggest a source of creativity, knowledge or inspiration. "Font" is another synonym which implies a source of knowledge and inspiration, particularly in religious contexts. "Seed" is yet another metaphorical equivalent which implies the sprouting of an idea or manifestation of creativity. All of these synonyms convey the idea of a source or foundation of something, with variations in nuance and connotation.

What are the hypernyms for Fountain-head?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

Famous quotes with Fountain-head

  • They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.
    Henry David Thoreau
  • The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it was, had been captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting; and so singular and hideous were the rites connected with it, that the police could not but realise that they had stumbled on a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infinitely more diabolic than even the blackest of the African voodoo circles. Of its origin, apart from the erratic and unbelievable tales extorted from the captured members, absolutely nothing was to be discovered; hence the anxiety of the police for any antiquarian lore which might help them to place the frightful symbol, and through it track down the cult to its fountain-head.
    H. P. Lovecraft
  • I have not read Nietzsche or Ibsen, nor any other philosopher, and have not needed to do it, and have not desired to do it; I have gone to the fountain-head for information—that is to say, to the human race. Every man is in his own person the whole human race, with not a detail lacking. I am the whole human race without a detail lacking; I have studied the human race with diligence and strong interest all these years in my own person; in myself I find in big or little proportion every quality and every defect that is findable in the mass of the race. I knew I should not find in any philosophy a single thought which had not passed through my own head, nor a single thought which had not passed the heads of millions and millions of men before I was born; I knew I should not find a single original thought in any philosophy, and I knew I could not furnish one to the world myself, if I had five centuries to invent it in. Nietzsche published his book, and was at once pronounced crazy by the world—by a world which included tens of thousands of bright, sane men who believed exactly as Nietzsche believed, but concealed the fact, and scoffed at Nietzsche. What a coward every man is! and how surely he will find it out if he will just let other people alone and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
    Mark Twain

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