lode

Etymology

Doublet of load, which has however become semantically restricted. The now-archaic lode continues the old sense of Old English lād (“way, course, journey”) but by the 19th century survived only dialectally in the sense of “watercourse”, as a technical term in mining, and in the compounds lodestone, lodestar.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ləʊd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /loʊd/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ləʉd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊd
• Homophones: load, lowed

Noun

lode (plural lodes)

1. (obsolete) A way or path; a road.
2. (dialectal) A watercourse.
3. (mining) A vein of metallic ore that lies within definite boundaries, or within a fissure.
   • 1967, Henry C. Berg, Edward Huntington Cobb, Metalliferous Lode Deposits of Alaska, page 14:

     The metals traditionally sought in the Bristol Bay region have been gold and copper, mostly in deposits near Lake Iliamna. An exception is a gold lode discovered about 1930 near Sleitat Mountain (4), where about $200 in gold was recovered from small quartz veins near the periphery of a small granitic intrusive body.

4. (by extension) A rich source of supply.
   • 2019 September 25, Gary Stix, “Two Linguists Use Their Skills to Inspect 21,739 Trump Tweets”, in Scientific American‎:

     In recent years, Jack Grieve of the department of English and linguistics at the University of Birmingham in England has embraced Twitter as a bountiful lode for looking at language-use patterns.

Anagrams

• DOLE, Delo, Deol, Doel, Dole, Ledo, OLED, dole, leod, olde

Noun

lode m

1. cloth, fabric

References

• Umberto Patuzzi, ed., (2013) Ünsarne Börtar, Luserna: Comitato unitario delle linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɔ.de/
• Rhymes: -ɔde
• Hyphenation: lò‧de

Etymology 1

From Latin laudem, from the Proto-Indo-European root *lēwt-, *lēwdʰ- (“song, sound”), from *lēw- (“to sound, resound, sing out”).

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Anagrams

• Delo, ledo