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fuente

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word fuente

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
938 a charter in Oelschläger's list, spelt fuant More words from the 10th century
Inherited from
Latin fons
Ultimate origin
Latin fons
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin fōns
Italian fonte
Spanish fuente
English font
From the same root
Latin fontānus ← fōns
Latin fonticulus ← fōns

Pronunciation

  • /ˈfwente/, [ˈfwẽn̪.t̪e][1]

Forms

fuente f (plural fuentes)[1] The earliest records have fuant (938) and fuent (1100, the Cid).[2][1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fons (“spring, source”), through Old Spanish fuant and fuent.[2][4][5][1] The Latin noun was masculine, but from the 4th century it changed gender like other nouns of the third declension, and it is feminine in all the Romance languages that kept it.[2] Old Castilian also had the form huente.[6]

The same word is Portuguese fonte, Galician fonte, Catalan font and Italian fonte.[6][7] Romanian, western Rhaeto-Romance and French lost it: French replaced it with the derivative French fontaine, and kept only French fonts “baptismal font”, from the Church Latin plural.[2][8]

According to de Vaan the Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *fonti- and Proto-Indo-European *dʰonh₂-ti- (“flowing”), a noun related to Sanskrit and Iranian words for running and flowing water.[9] Wiktionary derives it from the root *dʰenh₂- (“to flow”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the form fuant in a charter of 938.[2][4] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has fuent for a spring in a grove: Fallaron un vergel con una linpia fuent “they found an orchard with a clear spring”.[10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already uses the word for a natural spring, for an artificial fountain and, figuratively, for the origin of something: greed es fuente onde nascen todos los pecados “is the spring from which all sins are born”.[11] Covarrubias explains the phrase acudir a la fuente, “to go back to the beginning of what is being discussed”, from the spring as the origin of rivers.[12]

The sense “large serving dish” is a Castilian innovation not shared by the other Romance languages, except perhaps Galician and the Portuguese of the Minho.[2] Corominas traces it to Church Latin fons “baptismal font”, then a basin for washing the hands (Nebrija has fuente para lavar manos); Covarrubias still calls only large silver platters fuentes, while Autoridades adds those of pewter or clay.[2] The sense “open sore kept draining” is found in a Latin glossary of about 1400 and in Covarrubias and Cervantes.[2]

Modern senses include “source of information” and, in computing, “font”.[5][1] In Mexico, Cuba, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador and the Canaries the word names the amniotic sac, in phrases such as romper la fuente.[13][14][15]

Timeline

  • 938 – a charter has the form fuant.[2][4]
  • 1100 – the form fuent.[2]
  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has fuent.[10][2]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario describes a spring of fresh water.[11]
  • 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses the word for an artificial fountain.[11]
  • c. 1400 – the sense “draining sore” in a Latin glossary.[2]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin fons as the equivalent of fuente manantial.[16]
  • 1552 – first record from the Americas, in La Paz; a fuente de plata “silver dish” is recorded in Yucatán in 1566.[17]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin fons and calls silver platters fuentes.[12][2]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Latin etymon.[18]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A spring: water that comes out of the ground: Bebimos de una fuente junto al camino.[5][1]
  2. A fountain: a device that sends out water in gardens, houses, streets or squares.[5][1]
  3. A structure of stone, iron or other material with one or more spouts from which water flows.[5]
  4. The baptismal font.[5]
  5. A large, more or less deep platter for serving food: Sacó a la mesa una fuente de arroz.[5][1]
  6. The amount of food a serving dish holds.[5]
  7. The source, beginning or origin of something.[5][1]
  8. A person or thing that supplies information: El periodista no quiso revelar sus fuentes.[5]
  9. (computing) In a word processor, a set of characters of one design and size; a typeface.[5][1]
  10. (veterinary, usually plural) The hollow on each side of the hock of a horse.[5]
  11. (medicine) An ulcer kept open so that it drains.[5]
  12. (Central America, Colombia, Ecuador) The membrane that encloses the fetus.[13]

Word family

  • fuentezuela
  • fontana
  • fontanal
  • fontano
  • hontana
  • fontanero
  • hontanar
  • fontanela
  • Latin fons
  • Portuguese fonte

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 970
  3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. fuente
  4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fuente
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. fuente
  6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2862
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. fuente
  11. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. fuente
  12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 870
  13. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. fuente
  14. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 655
  15. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. fuente
  16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 355
  17. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. fuente
  18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 512

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Fuente.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/fuente. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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