life-source

plural life-sources

1. Anything that is necessary for or that provides something that is necessary for sustaining life.

   In popular belief, the soul has been seen as the life-source that gives shape, individuality and life to each human being;

   2014, Paul Collins, Judgment Day: The Struggle for Life on Earth, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Every branch vigorously growing on the main stem drawing fecundity from the sap produces leaves, flowers and fruit, but every branch which either from accident, sickness, or refusal to draw from the parent stem. separates itself from the inherited life-source, dooms itself to wither and die.

   1918, The Twentieth Century - Volume 84, page 923

   Because I cut the bonds of those so joined, I bear my head cut off from its life-source, which is back there, alas, within its trunk.

   2003, Dante Alighieri, The Portable Dante, →ISBN