Mother lode

noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A large or rich vein of gold or of another precious mineral from which other branches extend.

    "Undeterred, reasoning from the coarseness of the gold that it had not traveled far, they had set out in search of the mother lode."

  2. 2
    the main vein of ore in a deposit wordnet
  3. 3
    Any source of valuable or useful material. broadly, idiomatic

    "It is also letting them probe the genomes of other organisms for DNA that could turn out to be a mother lode for medicine."

Etymology

Probably a calque of Spanish veta madre (“mother lode”).

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