mother lode

noun

1

: the principal vein or lode of a region

2

: a principal source or supply

old papers that proved to be a mother lode of information about the town's history

Synonyms of mother lode

• gold mine
• treasure trove
• repository

Examples of mother lode in a Sentence

the university has long been a mother lode of athletic talent, with many alumni joining the rarefied ranks of the professionals

Recent Examples on the Web

The hustling spirit of the gold rush lives on today in the prospecting influencers who toil in the content mines of the Internet, hoping to hit the viral mother lode. — Jennifer Wilson, New Yorker, 4 May 2026

Beyond mother lodes of oil or natural gas, ready cash can also be generated with diamond or gold mines, precious metals, and rare minerals. — Stephen Kotkin, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2025

The demand has grown exponentially greater since 1985, much to the delight of those artists (and their record companies) whose back catalogs continue to be a seemingly endless mother lode. — George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Dec. 2025

Game shows have always been about making a deal, but this was the mother lode! — Lindsay Soll, EW.com, 25 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1863, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mother lode

• afterload
• episode
• internode
• microcode
• multimode
• nematode
• nesselrode
• overflowed
• overload
• overrode
• radioed
• torpedoed

Kids Definition

mother lode

noun

: the main vein or deposit of an ore (as gold) in a region