Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The source of a stream or spring.
  • noun A source.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A water-source; a fountainhead; a living spring.
  • noun Hence Figuratively, a perennial source of anything; a fountainhead of supply or of emanation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A fountain; a spring; a source of continual supply.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The source of water for a stream, spring or well; a fountainhead; a wellhead.
  • noun A perennial source of anything; a fountainhead of supply or emanation; resource.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the source of water for a well
  • noun an abundant source

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English wellespring, from Old English wiellspring, wiellġespring ("spring, fount, fountain"), corresponding to well +‎ spring. More at well, spring.

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Examples

  • A. the recently concluded campaign confirmed, presidential debates are wholly unsatisfying, yet their wellspring is the epic series of seven debates held in 1858 between A.raham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, both candidates for the Senate from Illinois.

    Leaders With Connections 2008

  • Some people -- don't know who, but they sound disreputable -- think that the people who write about the Park 51 Islamic Community Center being some kind of wellspring for birthing American-born terror babies are nuts.

    News & Politics 2010

  • The newfound species has been named Australopithecus sediba, a blend of the established Latin term for "southern ape" and the word for "wellspring" in the SeSotho language.

    AustralianIT.com.au | Top Stories 2010

  • Some people -- don't know who, but they sound disreputable -- think that the people who write about the Park 51 Islamic Community Center being some kind of wellspring for birthing American-born terror babies are nuts.

    News & Politics 2010

  • By 2005 Tipoff had morphed into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), the mother of all federal counterterrorism databases and the "wellspring" for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates world-wide.

    911Blogger.com - Paying Attention to 9/11 Related Alternative News 2008

  • Guan Moye his real one) is in his hometown of Gaomi, Shandong province, a place he has described as the wellspring of his creativity.

    TIME.com: Top Stories 2010

  • The first mystery of the Kalahari, the wellspring of original spirituality, is natural movement unfettered by the constraints and limited manipulations of mind, but not the kind of physical exercise in which you make yourself move.

    The Bushman Way of Tracking God PhD Bradford Keeney 2010

  • Several of the schools in the for-profit sector derive more than 85 percent of their revenues from federal student aid, putting them perilously close to the 90-percent threshold and placing schools at risk of losing access to the wellspring of federal aid.

    For-Profit Colleges Selling Students On High-Risk Loans, Consumer Group Says Chris Kirkham 2011

  • Several of the schools in the for-profit sector derive more than 85 percent of their revenues from federal student aid, putting them perilously close to the 90-percent threshold and placing schools at risk of losing access to the wellspring of federal aid.

    For-Profit Colleges Selling Students On High-Risk Loans, Consumer Group Says Chris Kirkham 2011

  • Several of the schools in the for-profit sector derive more than 85 percent of their revenues from federal student aid, putting them perilously close to the 90-percent threshold and placing schools at risk of losing access to the wellspring of federal aid.

    For-Profit Colleges Selling Students On High-Risk Loans, Consumer Group Says Chris Kirkham 2011

Comments

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  • ...of the joy of living....

    November 15, 2007