mother lode
12
6.8
- noun
- /ˈmʌðər loʊd/
- Informal
:
filón
- Thankfully, we have found the mother lode of all of the geysers, which is why there's a million people around this way.
- hit the mother lode
- strike a mother lode
- discover the mother lode
And it was a massive mother lode of warheads.
- And it was a massive mother lode of warheads.
- I mean, that's, that's the mother lode there of human culture.
- So first Aniyeb says to Gaelic, I know where the mother lode is.
- And that narcissist is like, oh, I've just hit the mother lode here.
- These are, for Becker, this this is the mother lode of psychological motivation.
- And boy, oh boy, did she hit the mother lode.
- And then there's like, you know, the mother lode of emotional reaction, which is bumping into your ex-wife.
- Thankfully, we have found the mother lode of all of the geysers, which is why there's a million people around this way.
- So someone coming in with the mother lode of the ultimate supply is very enticing and impossible for them to turn down.
- OK, so basically what they're doing is it sounds like if correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like CGB's the big, the mother lode here.
- I've had a lot of really, really great mother lode dumpster dives.
Examples
-
It is a world fraught with danger; but as with gold stocks, if you find the mother lode, you can be in for a very pleasant experience.
Blog text (20) -
After that, politics was the mother lode for this trio, and money, for most of the decade, was not a problem.
Fiction book (2002) -
And apparently, in doing so, we hit a mother lode of natural gas.
-
From Cavalli-Sforza's point of view, this ambitious project was the mother lode.
Academic text (2006) -
These are, for Becker, this this is the mother lode of psychological motivation.
-
A mother lode of rare coins, totally uncirculated, like they just came out of the mint.
-
Some conventions of dark fantasy offer a rich mother lode of fear-inducing techniques valuable to all fiction writers.
Academic text (2010) -
As Taleo CEO Michael Gregoire (who may retain that title as chief of an Oracle division) explained early in the webcast, Taleo is already the mother lode of employee talent data.
Blog text (33) -
Andrews and his team had stumbled onto the mother lode of dinosaur bones.
-
For scholars, the electronic archives of contemporary journalism are a mother lode of history.
Synonyms
21
3.2
A source of many useful things like information or money
20
9.1
A rich vein of metal ore in the ground
5
4.1
A rich source of useful things or information
The main rich vein of rock that has metal in a mine
How Rich
Surface Forms
Morphology
mother + lode
The compound combines 'mother' (metaphorically used to mean origin or primary source) with 'lode' (a vein of valuable minerals), so a learner who knows both words can plausibly infer a meaning like 'the main/ richest source'. However, the use of 'mother' as an intensifier for 'main source' is a metaphorical extension and slightly idiomatic, so the relation is partly predictable but not fully literal.
Etymology
The phrase mother lode comes from old mining. Miners used mother and lode to mean the big vein of gold underground, the main source that gave most of the metal. That's why today 'mother lode' means the 'main' or 'richest source' of something valuable.