provenance

What it means

1. countableuncountablePlace or source of origin.

   Many supermarkets display the provenance of their food products.

   1 more example

   Within this melee of intersections between English and Cantonese, the students, being themselves bilingually fluent, were able to navigate with perfect ease in communicative contexts where the provenance of a certain term or expression matters little.

   2015, James Lambert, “Lexicography as a teaching tool: A Hong Kong case study”, in Lan Li, Jamie McKeown, Liming Liu, editors, Dictionaries and corpora: Innovations in reference science. Proceedings of ASIALEX 2015 Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, page 147

2. countableuncountablearchaeologyThe place and time of origin of some artifact or other object. See Usage notes below.

   This spear is of Viking provenance.

   1 more example

   Further support for the Shansi provenance came in 1965, when a bronze quadruped with identical ornamentation and of approximately the same size as the Freer example was unearthed in tomb 126, at Fen-shui-ling, Ch'ang-chih, Shansi Province.

   1982, Thomas Lawton, “Bronze Vessels, Fittings, and Weapons”, in Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Smithsonian Institution, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 79, column 1

3. countableuncountableartThe history of ownership of a work of art.

   The picture is of royal provenance.

In a sentence

Many supermarkets display the provenance of their food products.

Where it comes from

1. Latinprovenio“to come forth”
2. Middle Frenchprovenant
3. Frenchprovenance“origin”
4. Englishprovenance

Borrowed from French provenance (“origin”), from Middle French provenant, present participle of provenir (“come forth, arise”), from Latin provenio (“to come forth”).