fountain - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

A fountain in Stockholm, Sweden

A fountain in Granada, Spain

From Middle English [Term?]; from Old French fontaine (whence modern fontaine); from Late Latin fontana, from Latin fontanus, fontaneus, adjectives from fons (“source, spring”).

fountain (plural fountains)

  1. (originally) A natural source of water; a spring.
    Synonyms: fount, (heraldry) syke, wellspring
  2. An artificial, usually ornamental, water feature (usually in a garden or public place) consisting of one or more streams of water originating from a statue or other structure.
    His house is right beside that fountain on Street 15.
  3. The structure from which an artificial fountain can issue.
    • 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./4/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, →OL:
      As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.
  4. A reservoir from which liquid can be drawn.
    • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 208:
      They heard her rouse the sleeping servant, and with her enter the kitchen; then the noise of a fire being lighted and the fountain being filled came to the watchers.
  5. (figurative) A source or origin of a flow (e.g., of favors or knowledge).
    • 1700, Tom Brown, Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London, page 5:
      Nothing will pleaſe ſome Men, but Books ſtuff’d with Antiquity, groaning under the weight of Learned Quotations drawn from the Fountains: And what is all this but Pilfering.
    • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 33:
      My lighter moods are like to these,
      ⁠That out of words a comfort win;
      ⁠But there are other griefs within,
      And tears that at their fountain freeze; […]
  6. (heraldry) A roundel barry wavy argent and azure.
    • 1928, New England Historic Genealogical Society. Committee on Heraldry, A Roll of Arms:
      Crest : A boar's head couped gold semy of fountains armed gules. Motto : REMIS VELISQUE. Granted by the College of Arms 1966.
    • 1953, United States. Department of the Army. Office of Military History, The Army Lineage Book, page 828:
      Argent, seme of fountains on a chief azure a Lorraine cross and an oak leaf of the first. Crest, None. Motto, Able and Ready. The blue of the shield represents Infantry. The fountains are emblematic of Arizona, […]
  7. (juggling) A juggling pattern typically done with an even number of props where each prop is caught by the same hand that throws it.
  8. (US) A soda fountain.
    • 2014, Danielle Sarver Coombs, Bob Batchelor, We Are What We Sell: How Advertising Shapes American Life... and Always Has, page 222:
      He takes out a soup bowl, fills it with Pepsi from the fountain, and places it carefully on the counter in front of the boy. “That'll be a quarter,” he says professionally.
    • 2018, Chris Grabenstein, Sandapalooza Shake-up, New York: Random House, →ISBN, page 67:
      A Sproke was a soft drink Gloria and I had created with Jimbo’s help at the Banana Shack. It was basically fountain Coke mixed with fountain Sprite.
  9. (US) A drink poured from a soda fountain, or the cup it is poured into.
  10. A ground-based firework that projects sparks similar to a water fountain.
  11. (figurative) Anything that resembles a fountain in operation.

artificial water feature

structure from which a fountain issues

source or origin of a flow

Translations to be checked

fountain (third-person singular simple present fountains, present participle fountaining, simple past and past participle fountained)

  1. (intransitive) To flow or gush as if from a fountain.
    Lava fountained from the volcano.
    • 1978, Tom Reamy, Blind Voices:
      The fireflies swept toward him from all directions, in streams and rivers and currents of light, a vortex a hundred yards across, spiraling into the brighter center. They met over his supine body like ocean breakers, cascading, fountaining into the air.

to flow or gush as if from a fountain

| | metals | main colours | less common colours | | | | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | tincture | or | argent | gules | azure | sable | vert | purpure | tenné | orange | sanguine | | depiction | a shield of gold | a shield of silver | a shield of red | a shield of blue | a shield of black | a shield of green | a shield of purple | a shield of brownish orange | a shield of bright orange | a shield of blood red | | roundel (in parentheses: semé): | a circle of goldbezant (bezanty) | a circle of silverplate (platy) | a circle of redtorteau (tortelly) | a circle of bluehurt (hurty) | a circle of blackpellet (pellety), ogress | a circle of greenpomme (pommy) | a circle of purplegolpe (golpy) | a circle of orangeorange (semé of oranges) | a circle of blood redguze (semé of guzes) | | | goutte (noun) / gutty (adjective) thereof: | a drop of gold(goutte / gutty) d'or (of gold) | a drop of silverd'eau (of water) | a drop of redde sang (of blood) | a drop of bluede larmes (of tears) | a drop of blackde poix (of pitch) | a drop of greend'huile / d'olive (olive oil) | a drop of purple | | | | | | special roundel | furs | uncommon tinctures: | | | | | | | | | | tincture | fountain, syke: barry wavy argent–azure | ermine | ermines, counter-ermine | erminois | pean | vair | counter-vair | potent | counter-potent | bleu celeste, brunatre, carnation, cendrée (iron, steel, acier), copper, murrey | | depiction | a circle of wavy blue and silver bars | a shield of ermine | a shield of ermines | a shield of erminois | a shield of pean | a shield of vair | a shield of countervair | a shield of potent | a shield of counterpotent | |

  1. ^ “fountain”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.