Summary: Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 10, 2013 is: fountainhead \FOUN-tun-hed\ noun 1 : a spring that is the source of a stream 2 : principal source : origin Examples: Rachel considers Aristotle's Poetics to be the fountainhead of modern art criticism. "Everyone sometimes daydreams like a scientist. Ramped up and disciplined, fantasies are the fountainhead of all creative thinking. Newton dreamed, Darwin dreamed, you dream." From an article by E. O. Wilson in The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2013 Did you know? When it first entered English in the late 1500s, "fountainhead" was used only in a literal senseto refer to the source of a stream. By the early 1600s, however, it was already beginning to be used figuratively in reference to any original or primary source. In his 1854 work Walden, Henry David Thoreau used the word in its figurative sense, while paying full homage to its literal meaning as well: "Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in this world."
