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 death toll from the collapse of an informal gold mine in a remote area of Sudan has risen to 82, according to local officials and activists, as rescuers struggled on Wednesday to search for the missing with limited equipment.
    — Yasir Abdallah, Los Angeles Times, 16 Sep. 2026
  • Survivors said that the collapse happened at the al-Zara gold mine, in Nuhud, a town in West Kordofan province, which is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 16 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • Sade’s apartment, a treasure trove of one-of-a-kind collectibles and vintage furniture in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is full of cozy nooks—factor in bowls of spaghetti pomodoro, and it’s guaranteed to be a party.
    — Elly Leavitt, Vogue, 18 Sep. 2026
  • Such a large-scale event is estimated to occur only once every 132 years, researchers said, making this a treasure trove of information as NASA prepares to build a base for astronauts on the moon.
    — Marcia Dunn, Los Angeles Times, 18 Sep. 2026
Noun
  • The repository forms a core section of the Vector complex, located about 130 kilometers north of Kyiv and 20 kilometers south of the Belarusian border.
    — Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 18 Sep. 2026
  • The company, led by Sam Altman, has acknowledged some of those incidents only after third parties publicly reported them, including a recent intrusion into the RubyGems software package repository.
    — Harshita Mary Varghese, USA Today, 17 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 26 Sep. 2026.

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