The meaning of PROVENANCE is origin, source. How to use provenance in a sentence.

Provenance covers an object's complete documented history. An artifact may thus have both a provenience and a provenance.

Typically, art dealers maintain a provenance, or detailed written documentation of a piece's history and sales.

Definition of provenance noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

There are four meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun provenance, one of which is labelled obsolete. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

Nov 21, 2025 · (computing) The copy history of a piece of data, or the intermediate pieces of data used to compute a final data element, as in a database record or web site (data provenance).

The provenance of something is the place that it comes from or that it originally came from.