Rootstock

Definitions

1. A healthy and vigorous-rooted plant that is used in grafting, most commonly as a sound base to support a scion that bears desirable fruit in orchard culture.
2. The necessary basis for something to develop.
   broadly, figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“We know⟳ more - vastly more - about how we are governed, and that knowledge is the rootstock of consent.”

CEFR level