Provenance

Pronunciation

Origin

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

Noun

1. Place or source of origin.Many supermarkets display the provenance of their food products.
2. (archaeology) The place and time of origin of some artifact or other object. See Usage note below.This spear is of Viking provenance.
3. (arts) The history of ownership of a work of artThe picture is of royal provenance.
4. (computing) The copy history of a piece of data, or the intermediate pieces of data utilized to compute a final data element, as in a database record or web site (data provenance)
5. (computing) The execution history of computer processes which were utilized to compute a final piece of data (process provenance)
6. (of a person) Background; history; place of origin; ancestry.

Usage notes

The term provenience in archaeology has largely replaced provenance because provenience is restricted to in situ location at the date of archaeological discovery rather than the "origin-to-present" chain of custody details of proper provenance as is customarily used by historians, museums, and commercial entities.