lode
UK /ləʊd/ · US /loʊd/ noun
Forms lodes
- noun (obsolete) A way or path; a road.
- noun (dialectal) A watercourse.
- noun (mining) A vein of metallic ore that lies within definite boundaries, or within a fissure.
- noun (by extension) A rich source of supply.
Synonyms
Etymology
Doublet of load, which has however become semantically restricted. The now-archaic lode continues the old sense of Old English lād (“way, course, journey”) but by the 19th century survived only dialectally in the sense of “watercourse”, as a technical term in mining, and in the compounds lodestone, lodestar.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A water course or way; a reach of water.
- noun A metallic vein; any regular vein or course, whether metallic or not.
Etymology [AS. lad way, journey, fr. li\'eban to go. See Lead to guide, and cf. Load a burden.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “lode”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details