Sound and Source: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning River, Lake

The natural features of a region are its topography (Greek topos, "place"). Rivers, lakes, and other freshwater bodies are examples of topographic features.

Freshwater features have accumulated a wide range of colorful names. In the current alphabetic series of words that refer to such features, here are the origins, forms, and histories of sound and source. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Sound
The Modern English water-related word sound comes from Middle English sound (14th century), which derives from both Old English sund (before 12th century) and Old Norse sund ("swimming, strait"). The word is akin to Old English swimman ("to swim").

The original, now obsolete, meaning of sound is the action of swimming; or, more broadly, any water or sea (9th century).

During the Middle English period, under the influence of Old Norse sund meaning "strait," the English word came to refer to a strait, that is, a long, relatively narrow passage of water connecting two larger bodies of water, such as a passage connecting a sea or a lake with an ocean. The word sound often refers to a channel passing between a mainland and an island. Another use of the word is to denote a long inlet of an ocean.

A possible early use of the word sound in these senses dates from about 1300. But since at least 1513 the "strait" meaning has been standard.

A sound sometimes consists only of saltwater bodies. However, a mix of saltwater and freshwater is common. A good example is the famous Puget Sound of Washington State. Puget Sound is both a saltwater arm of the Pacific Ocean and a vast estuary fed by about 10,000 freshwater rivers and streams.

Source
Modern English source comes from Middle English source (14th century) and sours (14th century), from Middle French sors and sourse, from the same forms in Old French, from the past participle of sourdre ("to rise, spring forth"), from Latin surgere ("to go straight up, rise"), from sub- ("up") and regere ("to lead straight").

The point of origin of a stream of water, that is, the place from which a flow of water takes its beginning, is called its source (c. 1386). Formerly, any spring or fount was called a source (c. 1477, now archaic).
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.