provenance UK /ˈpɹɒ.və.nəns/US /ˈpɹɑ.və.nəns/noun 6verb 1forms 3 noun6 •Place or source of origin.Many supermarkets display the provenance of their food products. •The place and time of origin of some artifact or other object. See Usage notes below.This spear is of Viking provenance. •Background; history; place of origin. •The history of ownership of a work of art.The picture is of royal provenance. •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 execution history of computer processes which were used to compute a final piece of data (process provenance). verb1 •To establish the provenance of something formsprovenanced · provenancing · provenances