origin

Noun

1. The beginning of something.
   • place of origin
   • trace the origin of something
   • unknown origin
2. The source of a river, information, goods, etc.
   • It is clear that the origin of the truth would be an admirable criterion of this sort, if only the various origins could be discriminated from one another from this point of view, and the history of dogmatic opinion...
   • Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths. Consider for a moment the origins of almost any word...

   Synonyms: source

3. The point at which the axes of a coordinate system intersect.

   Synonyms: zero vector

4. The proximal end of attachment of a muscle to a bone that will not be moved by the action of that muscle.
5. An arbitrary point on Earth's surface, chosen as the zero for a system of coordinates.
6. Ancestry.