mother lode

Definition of mother lodenext
as in gold mine
an abundant source the university has long been a mother lode of athletic talent, with many alumni joining the rarefied ranks of the professionals

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of mother lode Game shows have always been about making a deal, but this was the mother lode! Lindsay Soll, EW.com, 25 July 2025 And in another kind of desert, the Tatacoa in Colombia, two bare-bones museums hold a mother lode of 10 million-year-old fossils for study. Troy Aidan Sambajon, Christian Science Monitor, 2 Mar. 2025 Considering how much Italy is growing in terms of national branding, accessing the mother lode of tourism could be a great opportunity for foreign investors interested in Italy. Andrea Pietrini, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2025 There are nearly 1,600 types of beans alone in this mother lode called The Exchange, each with its own story of human connection. Margaret Roach, New York Times, 15 Jan. 2025 See All Example Sentences for mother lode
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mother lode
Noun
  • The ministry described its copper resources as equivalent to several large copper mines and its gold resources as exceeding those of 10 large gold mines.
    Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 1 Sep. 2026
  • More than 900,000 people have been displaced, while the region’s gold mines draw workers from a wide area.
    The Week UK, TheWeek, 28 Aug. 2026
Noun
  • The 2026 index will be a treasure trove of statistics on profits, revenues and growth—with many lessons from the successes of those listed.
    Kamal Ahmed, Fortune, 3 Sep. 2026
  • All of Roman’s data will be made publicly available as soon as it is processed on Earth, providing a treasure trove for scientists to mine for answers to a multitude of cosmic queries.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 30 Aug. 2026
Noun
  • In late July, open-source AI repository Hugging Face suffered a breach that apparently came from an autonomous AI program.
    Will McCurdy, PC Magazine, 6 Sep. 2026
  • OpenAI officials learned of the incident weeks ago but kept it under wraps as executives grappled with the fallout from the July breach of the open source repository Hugging Face, the people said.
    Reuters, NBC news, 4 Sep. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Mother lode.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20lode. Accessed 12 Sep. 2026.

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