Dictionary

ur-word en · NOUN

Etymology

From ur- (“original, primal”) + word. Compare Dutch oerwoord, German Urwort.

Meanings

1. An original or primal word; a protoword.
   • According to Hillis Miller, Hopkins supposed that, by a continuous process of subdivision, all words descend from a first original, an ur-word. 2004, John Powell Ward, The Spell of the Song:
   • As "neither linguistically conceived experience nor speech-less experience," but rather as "the experience of the removal of the word" and in unity with the experience of the birth of the word," the "Ur-word" would correspond accordingly to the "Ur-sentence", [...] 1997, Fritz Buri, The Buddha-Christ As the Lord of the True Self:
   • Enowning, enabling saying (showing), makes way in clearing and opening ways for gathering-thinging. Heidegger in another work calls on an Ur-word from the East, bringing it into play with the thought of enowning. 2006, Gail Stenstad, Transformations:

Forms