mother lode
nounDefinition of mother lode
1
: the principal vein or lode of a region
2
: a principal source or supply
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Synonyms for mother lode
Synonyms
argosy, cornucopia, gold mine, mine, treasure trove, wellspring
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Examples of mother lode in a Sentence
the university has long been a mother lode of athletic talent, with many alumni joining the rarefied ranks of the professionals
Recent Examples on the Web
The Austrian capital was (apart from the Churchill) the mother lode of our collection. — Zofia Smardz, Washington Post, "Souvenir matchbooks once were a hot item. Can they still rekindle travel memories?," 26 July 2019 The mother lode of silver inside the 15,800-foot Cerro Rico gave rise to the city of Potosi, Bolivia, which in the 1500s became the richest city in the world. — John Briley, Washington Post, "Endangered destinations," 18 July 2019 In the storm’s wake, the mother lode of numbing cold will crash south — likely to be the last but most bitter in brutal blasts since Christmas Eve in the Northeast. — Jason Samenow, Washington Post, "‘Bomb cyclone’ blasting East Coast before polar vortex uncorks tremendous cold late this week," 3 Jan. 2018 Soviet geologists discovered a diamond mother lode deep in the Siberian wilderness, and the company was founded soon after, in 1957. — Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, "A Diamond Giant Plays Up Its Russian Ties to Appeal to Americans," 11 July 2018 This mother lode of findings comes after a six-year delving into genomes representing more than a million people, a quest for unusual genetic signals that track with one or more of 42 disorders and traits. — Emily Willingham, Scientific American, "Analysis of a Million-Plus Genomes Points to Blurring Lines Among Brain Disorders," 22 June 2018 The mother lode instead came two days later, on Friday, October 7, when WikiLeaks posted its first batch of John Podesta’s emails. — Andrew Prokop, Vox, "The hacked emails at the center of Mueller’s Russia investigation, explained," 2 Apr. 2018 And the collection is still a meiofauna mother lode for contemporary researchers. — Adrienne Mason, Smithsonian, "King of The Mud Dragons," 2 Mar. 2018 Comstock boosts asking price for land near Nevada airport Area east of Reno has been booming thanks to Silicon Valley Long-struggling Comstock Mining Inc. may finally have its mother lode. — Bloomberg.com, "Trump: Will Be Putting in a Lot More Circuit Judges," 23 Feb. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'mother lode.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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