▪ I. fount1 Chiefly poet.
(faʊnt)
[Appears late in 16th c.; ad. F. font or L. font-em on the analogy of mount, mountain, etc.]
A spring, source, fountain n.
| 1593 Shakes. Lucr. 850 Why should..toads infect fair founts with venom mud? 1613 ― Hen. VIII, i. i. 154 Proofes as cleere as Founts in Iuly, when Wee see each graine of grauell. 1641 J. Jackson True Evang. Temper i. 8 As naturall a fluxe and emanation forth of it..as the water in the rivelet hath from the fount. 1667 Milton P.L. iii. 357 And flours aloft shading the Fount of Life. 1725 Pope Odyss. xix 562 Thy milky founts my infant lips have drained. 1728–46 Thomson Spring 398 High to their fount..trace up the brooks. a 1839 Praed Poems (1864) II. 308 By Kedron's brook, or Siloa's holy fount. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1593 Drayton Eclog. iv. 107 From this Fount did all those Mischiefs flow. 1833 Mrs. Browning Prometh. Bound Poems 1850 I. 144 Because I stole The secret fount of fire. 1842 Tennyson Locksley Hall 188 Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. 1874 Green Short Hist. v. §3. 235 The Archbishop turned fiercely upon Oxford as the fount and centre of the new heresies. |
▪ II. fount2, font Printing.
(faʊnt, fɒnt)
Also 8 found; cf. fund.
[See font n.2]
A complete set or assortment of type of a particular face and size. Also fully, fount of letter or type.
| 1683 Moxon Printing No. ii. ¶2. 13 A Fount (properly a Fund) of Letter of all Bodies. Ibid. No. xxiii. 377 Fount is the whole number of Letters that are Cast of the same Body and Face at one time. 1687–8 Boyle Let. 5 Mar. in Birch Life 417, I caused a font of Irish letters to be cast. 1714 Mandeville Fab. Bees (1725) I. 258 Break down the printing-presses, melt the founds. 1771 P. Luckombe Hist. Print. 248 A Complete Fount of Letter. 1834 Southey Doctor I. ii. 27 We discussed the merits of a new font. 1862 Burton Bk. Hunter 76 The largest font of Italics possessed by the establishment. 1878 F. S. Williams Midl. Railw. 630 He set up a complete fount of type. |