In graph terminology, an origin is a node within a connected directed acyclic graph (DAG) that has an in-degree of zero and an out-degree of >0. If such a graph has a single origin, the graph is said to be ‘rooted’ (cf. root).
In the context of stemmatology, the origin is the node within the stemma graph that represents either the original manuscript (if a single original is postulated) or the archetype from which all extant manuscripts descend (if no claim is made about the relationship of the archetype to any original.)
In other languages
DE: Ursprung
FR: origine
IT: origine
TA