mother-loden.
/ˈmʌðələʊd/, U.S. /ˈməðərˌloʊd/ Originally U.S.
1. Mining. The principal vein of ore in a working.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > minerals > mineral deposits > [noun] > vein > principal
master-vein1670
master lode1671
mother-lode1863
masterly lode1868
1863 J. S. Hittell Resources Calif. 302 The lode called the Esmeralda, the most prominent and apparently the mother lode of the district, runs with the meridian.
1873 Overland Monthly June 491/2 Being supposed by some that the silver ore found in this vicinity a couple of years before..came from the mother lode.
1882 J. H. Beadle Western Wilds (ed. 2) xxxiv. 561 What miners call a ‘mother lode’ is often like a tree in its upward development: below is the main trunk, above the branches diverge.
1891 Cent. Mag. Aug. 591 We had taken into our party a ‘professional’ geologist, who passed with us over miles and miles of the ‘mother lode’ without ever suspecting its existence.
1927 B. A. McKelvie Black Canyon p. vi They started up-stream in search of the mother-lode.
1965 G. J. Williams Econ. Geol. N.Z. v. 58/1 The mother-lode that had been envisaged as the source of the gold in the Blue~spur ‘cement’.
2. figurative. A rich supply or source of something.
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1927 Amer. Mercury Feb. 145/1 He taps the mother-lode of America.
1960 Encounter 14 iii. 74 The pages of the T.L.S. were the very mother-lode of academic inanity.
1991 Kiplinger's Personal Finance Mag. Oct. 36/2 Your portfolio holds a mother lode of opportunities.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1863