1. A fountain or spring from which a stream flows; the head-spring or source of a stream.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy. Turkie, I. viii. 9. This tower was made to none other intent (as also others since haue confirmed) then for the garding and keeping of the fountayne heads which from thence are brought and conueyed vnder the water into the citie.
1635. Swan, Spec. M., vi. § 2 (1643), 200. Rivers have their first originall from the sea: that is the fountain-head from whence all fountains have their heads.
1708. J. C., Compl. Collier (1845), 26. Any Water coming from the Fountain, will rise to the height of that Fountain Head, as in all Water Works, &c. in London and elsewhere.
1774. J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, II. 60. I passed through the regions of the north to the fountain head of the Ister.
1872. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 57. The great system of mining ditches, which, taking the waters of the streams from their fountain-heads, distributed them over the immense extent of ground worked now by the hydraulic process.
2. fig. The chief or prime source of anything; the quarter whence anything originates; esp. an original source of information, news, etc.
1606. Bryskett, Civ. Life, 114. These two vnruly and wild powers, which are the spring and fountaine head of all disordinate affections.
1655. The Nicholas Papers (Camden), II. 326. As I am likewise assured from some heere very neare the fountayne head at Bruxells.
1754. Foote, Knights, I. Wks. 1790, I. 64. You are about the court; and so, being at the fountain-head, know what is in the papers before they are printed.
1787. Bentham, Def. Usury, x. 94. To trace an error to its fountain-head, says lord Coke, is to refute it.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 28. The Convention was the fountain-head from which the authority of all future Parliaments must be derived.
