fount

English

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Etymology 1

Clipping of fountain, modelled after the formation of mount from mountain.[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

fount (plural founts)

  1. (chiefly poetic, dated or archaic) Synonym of fountain (“a natural source of water”); a spring. [from late 16th c.]
    Synonym: (chiefly figurative) font
    • 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC, signature G, recto:
      VVhy ſhould the vvorme intrude the maiden bud? / Or hatefull Kuckcovves [cuckoos] hatch in Sparrovvs neſts? / Or Todes infect faire founts vvith venome mud? / […] / But no perfection is ſo abſolute, / That ſome impuritie doth not pollute.
    • 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 207, column 1:
      [T]his top-proud fellovv, / […] / From ſincere motions, by Intelligence, / And proofes as cleere as Founts in Iuly, vvhen / VVee ſee each graine of grauell; I doe knovv / To be corrupt and treaſonous.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC, signature M2, verso, lines 237–241:
      [F]rom that Saphire Fount the criſped Brooks, / Rovvling on Orient Pearl and ſands of Gold, / VVith mazie error under pendant ſhades / Ran Nectar, viſiting each plant, and fed / Flours vvorthy of Paradiſe […]
    • 1726, Homer, “Book XVII”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume IV, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 119, lines 232–234:
      [F]rom the rock, vvith liquid lapſe diſtills / A limpid fount; that ſpread in parting rills / Its current thence to ſerve the city brings: […]
    • a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Spring”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 17, lines 396–397:
      High to their fount, this day, amid the hills, / And vvoodlands vvarbling round, trace up the brooks; […]
    • 1772, W. P., Forestallers and Engrossers Detected: With a Plan for Restoring Plenty once more to Old England! […], 2nd edition, London: […] R. Hawes, […], →OCLC, pages 5–6:
      [I]f a perſon did but call at a poor farmer's to aſk the vvay to any place, it vvas next to a cuſtom to aſk him to drink a mug of beer or cyder, and eat a cruſt of bread and cheeſe. But alas! alas! It is not ſo novv. No, it is all over! The graceful cuſtom's loſt; and the thirſty friend and hunger-bitten traveller may ſuck the cryſtal fount, or lick the duſt!
    • 1855 September, “Rambles”, in R. F. Johnstone, J. C. Holmes, editors, Michigan Farmer, volume XIII, number 9, Detroit, Mich.: R. F. Johnstone; W. S. Duncklee, →OCLC, page 265, column 1:
      And what adds beauty to utility, and both finely blended, is the fountain in the front door yard. The jet is about ten feet high, the water falling into a circular fount, or reservoir, about fifteen feet in diameter and two feet deep. […] The arrangement of the pipes is such at the fount that the water is conveyed to the barn for the stock, to the kitchen for culinary purposes, or permitted to pass through the jet at pleasure.
      Applied to an artificial water source.
    • 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, chapter XVIII, in The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 227:
      At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few old inhabitants, who came there for water whenever they had, as at present, spare time to fetch it, because it was purer from that original fount than from their own wells.
  2. (by extension, agriculture, archaic) A device from which poultry may drink; a waterer.
    • 1872 July, “Price Lists Received”, in The Poultry World. For the Fancier, Family, and Market Poulterer, volume I, number 7, Hartford, Conn.: H. H. Stoddard, →OCLC, page 90, column 2:
      A. H. Hews & Co., North Cambridge, Mass. Manufacturers of Poultry Water Founts. Capacities one quart, two quarts, three quarts, and four quarts. For sale, wholesale and retail.
    • 1882 January, “Poultry-house”, in The Poultry World: For the Fancier, Family, and Market Poulterer, volume XI, number 1, Hartford, Conn.: H. H. Stoddard, […], →OCLC, page 5, column 3:
      On north side an alley six feet wide whole length of building, partitioned as follows: 1st, Feed troughs and water founts; above these, at proper height, two tiers of nest boxes, one above the other— […]
      Quoted from a correspondent of the Prairie Farmer.
  3. (figurative) That from which something proceeds; an origin, a source. [from early 17th c.]
    He is a real fount of knowledge!
    • 1606?, Michaell Drayton [i.e., Michael Drayton], “The Fourth Eglog”, in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall. […], London: […] R. B[radock] for N[icholas] L[ing] and I[ohn] Flasket, →OCLC; republished in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall (Publications of the Spenser Society, New Series; 4), [Manchester: […] Charles E. Simms] for the Spenser Society, 1891, →OCLC, page 54:
      This was the ſad beginning of our woes / that was from hell on wretched mortalls hurld / & from this fount did all thoſe miſchiefes flow / whoſe inundation drowneth all the world.
    • 1758 (date written), [Robert Robinson], “Hymn I [Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing]”, in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Church of Christ: Meeting in Angel-Alley, Whitechappel, Margaret-Street, near Oxford-Market, and Other Churches in Fellowship with Them […], London: [s.n.], published 1759, →OCLC, verse 1, page 3:
      Come, thou Fount of ev'ry Bleſſing, / Tune my Heart to ſing thy Grace: / Streams of Mercy never ceaſing, / Call for Songs of loudeſt Praiſe: […]
      See Chris Fenner (22 September 2024) “Come, thou fount of every blessing”, in Hymnology Archive‎[1], archived from the original on 26 January 2025.
    • 1835, Alfred Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 111:
      O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. / Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.
    • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXIV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 41:
      And was the day of my delight / ⁠As pure and perfect as I say? / ⁠The very source and fount of Day / Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.
    • 1853, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “Lecture the Fifth. Hogarth, Tobias Smollett, and Fielding.”, in The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century. […], London: Smith, Elder, & Co. […]; Bombay, Maharashtra: Smith, Taylor, & Co., →OCLC, page 250:
      Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble [in Smollett's work The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1777)] must keep Englishmen on the grin for ages yet to come; and in their letters and the story of their loves there is a perpetual fount of sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible as Bladud's well.
    • 2025 January 3, Christina Izzo, “Cunk on Life is Brilliantly Funny (and Depressingly Timely)”, in The A.V. Club‎[2], archived from the original on 14 January 2025:
      In fact, for all of [Diane] Morgan's game dopiness and genius timing, the biggest laugh might come from famed particle physicist Brian Cox, who—after having to listen to yet another misguided and meandering anecdote about Cunk's mate Paul, an ill-informed fount of knowledge for our title star—finally asks: "So what does Paul do?"
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

A variant of font, influenced by fount (etymology 1) being a synonym of font (“natural source of water, spring”).[2]

Pronunciation

Noun

fount (plural founts)

  1. (UK, printing, typography, chiefly dated, historical) Synonym of font (“a set of glyphs of unified design, usually representing the letters of an alphabet and its supplementary characters belonging to one typeface, style, and weight; a typeface; a family of typefaces”). [from late 17th c.]
    • 1683, Joseph Moxon, “Numb[er] II. Applied to the Art of Printing.”, in Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. […], volume II, London: […] Joseph Moxon […], →OCLC, § 2 (Of Letter), page 17:
      Of each Body he provides a Fount ſuitable to ſuch ſorts of VVork as he deſigns to do; But he provides not an equal vvieght[sic – meaning weight] of every Fount; Becauſe all theſe Bodies are not in equal uſe: For the Long-Primmer, Pica and Engliſh are the Bodies that are generally moſt uſed; And therefore he provides very large Founts of theſe, viz. of the Long-Primmer in a ſmall Printing-Houſe; Five hundred Pounds vveight Romain and Italica, vvhereof One hundred and fifty Pounds may be Italica.
    • 1765, Temple Henry Croker, Thomas Williams, Samuel Clark [et al.], “FOUNT, or Font”, in The Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. […], volume II, London: […] J. Wilson & J. Fell, […], →OCLC, signature [Kk3], verso, column 1:
      Founts are large or ſmall, according to the demand of the printer. vvho orders them by the hundred vveight, or by ſheets. VVhen a printer orders a fount of five hundred, he means that the fount, conſiſting of letters, points, ſpaces, quadrates, &c. ſhall vveigh 500 ℔. […] [A] fount does not contain an equal number of a and b, or of b and c, &c. the letter-founders have therefore a lift or tariff, or as the French call it, a police, by vvhich they regulate the proportions betvveen the different ſorts of characters that compoſe a fount; […]
    • 1892, Herbert Giles, “Preface”, in A Chinese–English Dictionary, London: Bernard Quaritch […]; Shanghai; Hongkong: Kelly and Walsh, →OCLC, page v:
      For the small characters it was in fact imperative to use such a fount as was available; not to mention that no strictly accurate fount of Chinese type has as yet been cast.
    • 1933, Dorothy L[eigh] Sayers, “Murder Must Advertise. Chapter 4. Remarkable Acrobatics of a Harlequin.”, in The Five Red Herrings (Suspicious Characters) and Murder Must Advertise, Garden City, N.Y.: Nelson Doubleday, published [1977?], →OCLC, page 344:
      Mr. Tallboy corrected the misprints, damned their eyes for using the wrong name-block, made it clear to them that they had set the headlines in the wrong fount, cut the proof to pieces, pasted it up again in the correct size, and returned it.
    • 1940 May, G. W. J. Potter, “Tickets of the Great Southern Railways”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 292:
      The company is to be congratulated on the neatness and businesslike look of the tickets, and also on the very clear and artistic founts of type which are used.
Translations

References

  1. ^ “fount1, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022; compare “fount, n.1”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2024; Katherine Barber, editor (1998), “fount1, n.”, in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 548, column 2.
  2. ^ “fount, n.2”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2024.; “fount2, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams

Occitan

Noun

fount f (plural founts)

  1. spring, fountain
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