different between provenience vs provenance

English

Etymology

Alteration of provenance

Noun

provenience (plural proveniences)

1. (archaeology) Source; findspot; origin.

Usage notes

• The term provenience in archaeology/archeology has largely replaced provenance in order to distinguish and clarify the issue of "findspot" from "ownership." Provenience most frequently refers to the in situ location at the time of archaeological discovery ("the provenience of an artifact"), while provenance is customarily used by historians, museums, and commercial entities to refer to chain of custody, ideally from the time of origin to the current location in museums or private collections.

Translations

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French provenance (“origin”), from Middle French provenant, present participle of provenir (“come forth, arise”), from Latin provenio (“to come forth”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p??.v?.n?ns/, /?p??.v?.?n?ns/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?p??.v?.n?ns/

Noun

provenance (countable and uncountable, plural provenances)

1. Place or source of origin.

   Many supermarkets display the provenance of their food products.
2. (archaeology) The place and time of origin of some artifact or other object. See Usage note below.

   This spear is of Viking provenance.

3. (art) The history of ownership of a work of art

   The picture is of royal provenance.

4. (computing) The copy history of a piece of data, or the intermediate pieces of data utilized to compute a final data element, as in a database record or web site (data provenance)
5. (computing) The execution history of computer processes which were utilized to compute a final piece of data (process provenance)
6. (of a person) Background; history; place of origin

   Synonym: ancestry

Usage notes

• The term provenience in archaeology has largely replaced provenance because provenience is restricted to in situ location at the date of archaeological discovery rather than the "origin-to-present" chain of custody details of proper provenance as is customarily used by historians, museums, and commercial entities.

Related terms

• provenantial

Translations

Verb

provenance (third-person singular simple present provenances, present participle provenancing, simple past and past participle provenanced)

1. To establish the provenance of something

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p??v.n??s/
• Rhymes: -??s

Noun

provenance f (plural provenances)

1. provenance, origin

   La violence continue en provenance de Homs, l'épicentre de contestation.

   Violence continues in Homs, the epicentre of the protests.

Related terms

• provenir

Further reading

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