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source

noun · verb

Simple meaning

The person, place, or thing from which something comes or is acquired.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

sawrs
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsɔɹs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The person, place, or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.

  2. A document (or organization) from which information is obtained

    “The reporter had two sources for the story.”

  3. A person who supplies information

  4. A reporter's informant.

  5. Spring; fountainhead; wellhead; any collection of water on or under the surface of the ground in which a stream originates.

verb

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

  2. transitive

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

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The person, place, or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.

Used this way, source is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use source

  • “The reporter had two sources for the story.”noun
  • “She sourced a supply of carpet.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Anything

source book

Spring

data source

Node

primary source

Originates

open source

Energy

energy source

Other combinations

source codesource materialmajor source

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • source booknounCompound term

    A collection of historically important documents published together as a book.

  • source codenounCompound term

    Program instructions written as an ASCII text file.

  • source languagenounCompound term

    A language that is to be translated into another language.

  • source materialsnounCompound term

    Publications from which information is obtained.

  • source of illuminationnounCompound term

    Any device serving as a source of visible electromagnetic radiation.

  • source programnounCompound term

    A program written in a language from which statements are translated into machine language.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: person or place

origin

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.