Other forms: sources
A source is where something comes from. The source of the river, a reliable source, cite your sources.
In journalism a source is the person who tells you something, and protecting one is a professional principle that has put reporters in prison. In research, citing sources is what lets anybody check your work, which is the whole point of doing it.
1nounsourceWhere something comes from.
“The river's source is a small spring high in the mountains.”
source is an origin.
Old French sorse means a spring or rise, from Latin surgere, to rise. Surge is a relative.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reǵ-
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃réǵeti — to straighten; right
Latin
surgō — to rise
Old French
sorse — rise, beginning, spring, source
Middle English
sours
English, today
source
From Middle English sours, from Old French sorse (“rise, beginning, spring, source”), from sors, past participle of sordre, sourdre, from Latin surgō (“to rise”), which is composed of sub + regō, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₃réǵeti (“to straighten; right”), from the root h₃reǵ-. a doublet of surge.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA