Definition of "fountainhead" [fountainhead]

• A spring that is the source or head of a stream. (noun)
• A chief and copious source; an originator: "the intellectual fountainhead of the black conservatives” ( Jerrold K. Footlick). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Since that day, more than forty years ago, Greenspan has become the figurehead (not the "fountainhead" - figurehead) for a new form of "establishment radicalism," a white-collar extremism which that has hijacked American economic policy for the last thirty years."
• "The honor is well-deserved, for Holland may fairly be called the fountainhead of modern international law, and has produced many of its best expounders, from Grotius and Bynkershoek to Asser."
• "The growing number of spin-off IDEs that point to Eclipse as their fountainhead is a testament to Eclipse's capability."