sourcenoun/sɔːs/

• 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.
  • To this day I do not know the source of the terrible screams that night in the labyrinth. Perhaps an owl. Perhaps something else...
• 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.
  • The O-erh-ch'i-ssu River begins in the southern section of the lofty A-erh-t'ai Mountains of Sinkiang. This river is over 2,900 kilometers long and has a large delta area rich in minerals such as gold, iron, copper, lead, zinc, mercury, mica, crystal and "ping-chou-shih" [3056 3166 4258 possibly cryolite]. At the source of the O-erh-ch'i-ssu River, the A-erh-t'ai Mountains reach more than 3,000 meters above sea level. The peaks of the mountains are covered with snow year-round, and rainfall is heavy in the summer.
• 3

  A reporter's informant.

• 4

  computingengineeringmathematicsSource code.

• 5

  businesselectrical-engineeringelectricityThe name of one terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).

• 6

  graph-theorymathematicssciencesA node in a directed graph whose edges all go out from it; one with no entering edges.

• 7

  category-theorycomputingengineeringThe domain of a function; the object which a morphism points from.

  • Coordinate term: target

sourceverb/sɔːs/

• 1

  To obtain or procure: used especially of a business resource.

  • But the point when it would have to look at alternative new-build vehicles was always looming large, and there would inevitably be a finite number of Class 66s it could source from elsewhere, and a limit to other locomotives it could re-power.
• 2

  To find information about (a quotation)'s source (from which it comes): to find a citation for.