Provenance is the record of where something came from and who has owned it since. In the art and antiques trade it is the documented chain of ownership, and it is often worth more than the object's condition.
That is because provenance is what separates a genuine piece from a forgery and a legitimate sale from a looted one: a painting with a gap in its provenance during the 1940s is a painting nobody will touch. The word has spread from art to food — the provenance of the beef — and to data and software, where provenance means the record of where information came from and what has been done to it. It is uncountable and formal, and the French pronunciation is not used in English.
1nounprovenanceThe record of where something came from.
“The provenance of the vase is documented back to 1890.”
2nounhistoryThe written history of who has owned a piece.
“There is a gap in the provenance between the wars.”
provenance is a record of origin.
French provenance comes from provenir, to come forth — Latin pro-, forth, plus venire, to come. The word is a plain statement of the question it answers: where did this come from.
Latin
provenio — to come forth
Middle French
provenant
French
provenance — origin
English, today
provenance
Built from
Borrowed from French provenance (“origin”), from Middle French provenant, present participle of provenir (“come forth, arise”), from Latin provenio (“to come forth”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA