From Old French _origine_, from Latin _origo_ (“beginning, source, birth, origin”), from _oriri_ (“to rise”); see orient.

ORIGIN (_plural_ ORIGINS) * The beginning of something. * The source of a river, information, goods, etc. * (mathematics) The point at which the axes of a coordinate system intersect. * (anatomy) The proximal end of attachment of a muscle to a bone that will not be moved by the action of that muscle. * (cartography) An arbitrary point on the earth's surface, chosen as the zero for a system of coordinates. * (in the plural) Ancestry. SYNONYMS * (source): source * (mathematics): zero vector ANTONYMS * (source): destination * (anatomy): insertion RELATED TERMS * orient * original * originate * originator * origination SEE ALSO * provenance TRANSLATIONS EXTERNAL LINKS * origin in _Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary_, G. & C. Merriam, 1913 * origin in _The Century Dictionary_, The Century Co., New York, 1911