mother lode
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See also: motherlode and mother-lode
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Probably a calque of Spanish veta madre (“mother lode”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Audio (US): (file) Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun[edit]
mother lode (plural mother lodes)
- (geology) A large or rich vein of gold or of another precious mineral from which other branches extend.
- 1912, Jack London, “The Little Man”, in Smoke Bellew:
- Undeterred, reasoning from the coarseness of the gold that it had not traveled far, they had set out in search of the mother lode.
- (idiomatic, by extension) Any source of valuable or useful material.
- 2000 April 10, Dick Thompson, “The Feds Step Up the Pace”, in Time[1]:
- It is also letting them probe the genomes of other organisms for DNA that could turn out to be a mother lode for medicine.
- 2014 March 4, Landon Thomas Jr., “Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits”, in New York Times[2]:
- Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits [title]
Translations[edit]
large or rich vein of precious mineral
Further reading[edit]
- mother lode on Wikipedia.Wikipedia