different between fountain vs cause

English

Etymology

From Middle English [Term?]; from Old French fontaine (whence modern fontaine); from Late Latin fontana, from Latin fontanus, fontaneus, adjectives from fons (“source, spring”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fa?n.tn?/
  • (US) IPA^(key): [?fa?n.?n?]

Noun

fountain (plural fountains)

1. (originally) A natural source of water; a spring.
2. An artificial, usually ornamental, water feature (usually in a garden or public place) consisting of one or more streams of water originating from a statue or other structure.
3. The structure from which an artificial fountain can issue.
4. A reservoir from which liquid can be drawn.
5. A source or origin of a flow (e.g., of favors or knowledge).
   • 1700, Tom Brown, Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London, page 5:

     Nothing will plea?e ?ome Men, but Books ?tuff’d with Antiquity, groaning under the weight of Learned Quotations drawn from the Fountains: And what is all this but Pilfering.

6. (heraldry) A roundel barry wavy argent and azure.
7. (juggling) A juggling pattern typically done with an even number of props where each prop is caught by the same hand that throws it.
8. (US) A soda fountain.
   • 2014, Danielle Sarver Coombs, ?Bob Batchelor, We Are What We Sell: How Advertising Shapes American Life... and Always Has (page 222)

     He takes out a soup bowl, fills it with Pepsi from the fountain, and places it carefully on the counter in front of the boy. “That'll be a quarter,” he says professionally.

9. (US) A drink poured from a soda fountain, or the cup it is poured into.
10. A ground-based firework that projects sparks similar to a water fountain.
11. (figurative) Anything that resembles a fountain in operation.

Synonyms

• fount
• wellspring
• (heraldry) syke

Derived terms

Related terms

• font

Translations

Verb

fountain (third-person singular simple present fountains, present participle fountaining, simple past and past participle fountained)

1. (intransitive) To flow or gush as if from a fountain.
   • 1978, Tom Reamy, Blind Voices

     The fireflies swept toward him from all directions, in streams and rivers and currents of light, a vortex a hundred yards across, spiraling into the brighter center. They met over his supine body like ocean breakers, cascading, fountaining into the air.

Translations

References

Further reading

• fountain on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• infonaut

English

Etymology

From Middle English cause, borrowed from Old French cause (“a cause, a thing”), from Latin causa (“reason, sake, cause”), in Middle English also "a thing". Origin uncertain. See accuse, excuse, recuse, ruse. Displaced native Middle English sake (“cause, reason”) (from Old English sacu (“cause”)), Middle English andweorc, andwork (“matter, cause”) (from Old English andweorc (“matter, thing, cause”)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kôz, IPA^(key): /k??z/, [k?o?z?]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /k?z/, [k???z?]
• Rhymes: -??z
• Homophones: caws, 'cause; cores (non-rhotic dialects)

Noun

cause (countable and uncountable, plural causes)

1. (countable, often with of, typically of adverse results) The source of, or reason for, an event or action; that which produces or effects a result.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:cause

2. (uncountable, especially with for and a bare noun) Sufficient reason for a state, as of emotion.

   Synonyms: grounds, justification

3. (countable) A goal, aim or principle, especially one which transcends purely selfish ends.
   • 1796, Edmund Burke, a letter to a noble lord

     The part they take against me is from zeal to the cause.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:goal

4. (obsolete) Sake; interest; advantage.

   • I did it not for his cause.

5. (countable, obsolete) Any subject of discussion or debate; a matter; an affair.
6. (countable, law) A suit or action in court; any legal process by which a party endeavors to obtain his claim, or what he regards as his right; case; ground of action.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• effect

Verb

cause (third-person singular simple present causes, present participle causing, simple past and past participle caused)

1. (transitive) To set off an event or action.

   • Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. […] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
2. (ditransitive) To actively produce as a result, by means of force or authority.

   • I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days.
3. To assign or show cause; to give a reason; to make excuse.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)

Derived terms

• causation
• causer

Translations

Further reading

• cause at OneLook Dictionary Search
• cause in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• cause in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• -sauce, sauce

Asturian

Verb

cause

1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive of causar

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /koz/
• Homophones: causent, causes

Etymology 1

From Old French cause, borrowed from Classical Latin causa. Compare chose, an inherited doublet.

Noun

cause f (plural causes)

1. cause

   Antonym: conséquence

2. (law) case (a legal proceeding)

Derived terms

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Verb

cause

1. inflection of causer:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “cause” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• sauce, sceau

Italian

Noun

cause f pl

1. plural of causa

Middle English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French cause.

Noun

cause (plural causes)

1. cause
   • 14^th Century, Chaucer, General Prologue

     He knew the cause of everich maladye

     He knew the cause of every illness

Descendants

• English: cause

Norman

Etymology

From Old French cause, borrowed from Latin causa.

Noun

cause f (plural causes)

1. (Jersey, law) case

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin causa, whence the inherited chose.

Noun

cause f (oblique plural causes, nominative singular cause, nominative plural causes)

1. cause

Descendants

• Middle English: cause
  • English: cause
• Middle French: cause
  • French: cause
• Norman: cause

Portuguese

Verb

cause

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of causar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of causar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of causar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of causar

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kause/, [?kau?.se]

Verb

cause

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of causar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of causar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of causar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of causar.