origin

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The point at which something comes into existence or from which it derives or is derived.
• noun Ancestry.
• noun The fact of originating; rise or derivation.
• noun Anatomy The point of attachment of a muscle that remains relatively fixed during contraction.
• noun Mathematics The point of intersection of coordinate axes, as in the Cartesian coordinate system.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To give rise to; originate; initiate.
• To arise; originate.
• noun Beginning of existence; rise or first manifestation; first stage or indication of being or existence.
• noun That from which anything derives its being or nature; source of being or existence; cause or occasion; fountain; source: as, the origins of a nation.
• noun Hence, parentage; ancestry; pedigree; extraction; birth.
• noun In mathematics, the fixed starting-point from which measurement or motion starts; specifically, in analytical geometry, the point from which the coördinates are measured.
• noun In anatomy: The proximal, larger, or more fixed one of the two ends or attachments of a muscle; the part or place whence a muscle usually acts: opposed to insertion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The first existence or beginning of anything; the birth.
• noun That from which anything primarily proceeds; the fountain; the spring; the cause; the occasion.
• noun (Anat.) The point of attachment or end of a muscle which is fixed during contraction; -- in contradistinction to insertion.
• noun (Math.) the point where the axes intersect. See Note under Ordinate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The beginning of something.
• noun The source of a river, information, goods, etc.
• noun mathematics The point at which the axes of a coordinate system intersect
• noun anatomy The proximal end of attachment of a muscle to a bone that will not be moved by the action of that muscle.
• noun cartography an arbitrary point on the earth's surface, chosen as the zero for a system of coordinates.
• noun in the plural ancestry

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the place where something begins, where it springs into being
• noun the point of intersection of coordinate axes; where the values of the coordinates are all zero
• noun the descendants of one individual
• noun an event that is a beginning; a first part or stage of subsequent events
• noun properties attributable to your ancestry
• noun the source of something's existence or from which it derives or is derived