Other forms: fountains
A fountain is the decoration in a square that shoots water into the air. A stone fountain, throw a coin in the fountain, the fountain plays.
The Romans built theirs to run on gravity from aqueducts, with no pump at all, which is why the great ones sit below their source. A drinking fountain is a different thing. Note fountain pen, named because it holds its own ink; and that the Latin fons means a spring.
1nounfountainA structure that shoots water into the air.
“The children splashed in the fountain in the middle of the square.”
fountain is a water feature.
Latin fontana comes from fons, a spring or source. Font, in the church, comes from the same spring.
Latin
fontana
Old French
fontaine
English, today
fountain
Built from
From Middle English; from Old French fontaine (whence modern fontaine); from Latin fontana, from Latin fontanus, fontaneus, adjectives from fons (“source, spring”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA