# source

> English word · Noun · IPA /sɔːs/ · frequency rank #743

## Definitions
1. The person, place, or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.
2. Spring; fountainhead; wellhead; any collection of water on or under the surface of the ground in which a stream originates.
3. A reporter's informant.
4. Source code.
5. The name of one terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).
6. A node in a directed graph whose edges all go out from it; one with no entering edges.
7. The domain of a function; the object which a morphism points from.

## Etymology
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- (“up from below”) + regō (“lead, rule”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃réǵeti (“to straighten; right”), from the root *h₃reǵ-. Doublet of surge.

## Easily confused with
- **sure** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/source-vs-sure)
- **surge** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/source-vs-surge)
- **sources** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/source-vs-sources)
- **sore** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/sore-vs-source)
- **sour** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/sour-vs-source)
- **sauce** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/sauce-vs-source)
- **scarce** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scarce-vs-source)
- **solace** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/solace-vs-source)
- **sluice** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/sluice-vs-source)
- **scourge** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scourge-vs-source)

## Common misspellings (8)
`osurce`, `soruce`, `soucre`, `sourcce`, `sourec`, `sourrce`, `ssource`, `suorce`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/source