Fount

Fount (pronounced phont)

(1) A spring of water; fountain (now most of poetic use).

(2) A receptacle in church for holy water.

(3) A receptacle for oil in a lamp.

(4) In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size.

(5) In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film on which they are stored; in digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer code representing it.

(6) In computing a file containing the code used to draw and compose the glyphs of one or more typographic fonts on a computer display or printer (now always with the spelling font).

(7) A source or origin; often used in a mystical sense such as a “fount of wisdom”.

1250-1300: A back formation (as a shortened form) from fountain, from the Old English font, a borrowing from the From Middle French fonte, feminine past participle of verb fondre (to melt), from the Latin fons (fountain)  It came from a primitive Indo-European root cognate with the Sanskrit धन्वति (dhanvati) (flows, runs), possibly dhenhz- (to flow).  The Old French fonte (a founding, casting), came apparently from the (unattested) Vulgar Latin funditus (a casting), from the Latin fundere (to melt).

The two meetings are unrelated.  The sense of font (and fount) as a "complete set of characters of a particular face and size of printing type," dates from the 1680s, such things have been referred to from the 1570s as a casting.  The meaning became attached because of the link with the Middle French fonte (a casting), noun use of feminine past participle of fondre (to melt) from the fundere (past participle fusus) (to melt; cast; pour out) from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root gheu- (to pour).  The fount (and fount) became so called because all the letters in a given set were cast at the same time; fonte is also the root of foundry (the places where metal for the typefaces was melted) and, because of the melting cheese: fondue.

In modern use, the preferred convention is for font to be used when referring to digital typefaces and fount for metal and other older systems of typesetting.  Fount should be used for all other senses although many US dictionaries do suggest font may be used for all purposes.

Baptism Fount, Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada