fountainhead
noun
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In Walden, widely considered Henry David Thoreau’s masterwork, the poet-philosopher extolled one major—nay, transcendent—perk of being an early bird: “Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in this world.” Thoreau was using fountainhead in its figurative sense—referring to morning as the “origin” of the day to follow—while also paying homage to its literal meaning, “the source of a stream” (the earliest sense of fountain being “a natural spring”). As someone who spent two years living, writing, and meditating in a cabin, Thoreau was nothing, after all, if not thorough.
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Examples of fountainhead in a Sentence
Shivaram Rajgopal, Forbes, 11 Oct. 2024
The shimmering spot lensed by her longtime friend Steven Klein takes her back to the brand fountainhead dripping with gold, while simultaneously catapulting J’Adore — Rihanna-channeled — into the future.
—Jennifer Weil, WWD, 3 Sep. 2019
From tea drinking to persimmon cultivation, the city became a fountainhead of Japanese food culture.
—Megan Zhang, Saveur, 9 May 2024
The patriarch, the fountainhead, is Eli McCullough, born the same day that Texas became a state, a hard man forged through fire.
—Chris Vognar, Chron, 28 May 2023
Stoic happiness, like Stoic everything else, makes internal calm its fountainhead.
—Tom Bissell, Harper’s Magazine , 10 Apr. 2023
Because the Court implied that its own authority to interpret the Constitution is superior to that of the other branches, the case is the fountainhead of judicial supremacy.
—Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker, 5 Jan. 2023
The fountainhead of American bohemia, Greenwich Village has always departed from the straight and narrow.
—Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 21 Nov. 2022
In Picasso’s vision, Africa had become a fountainhead of the art of the modern world.
—David Frum, The Atlantic, 14 Sep. 2022
Dictionary Entries Near fountainhead
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“Fountainhead.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fountainhead. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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fountainhead
noun
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