Ur-

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: en, /ÊŠÉ™/, /ɜː/
• US IPA: en, /ɝ/

Origin

From , originally from ,

“Ur-”, in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1974 edition.

from , from , from (same meaning). Cognate with , .

Full definition of ur-

Prefix

1. Forming words with the sense of ‘proto-, primitive, original’.
• 2003, John Adcox, 'Can Fantasy be Myth? Mythopoeia and The Lord of the Rings', The Newsletter of the Mythic Imagination Institutehttp://www.mythicjourneys.org/passages/septoct2003/newsletterp8.html:Some stories reach deeper, into the most primal and profound truths. They mirror, in new and original ways, the Ur-myth, the act of creation itself.
• 2007, Max Rodenbeck, ‘Lebanon's Agony’, New York Review of Books, vol. 54 no. 11:Lebanon ultimately remains hostage to the regional ur-conflict over Palestine.

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