ur-word
nounEtymology From ur- (“original, primal”) + word. Compare Dutch oerwoord, German Urwort.
1
An original or primal word; a protoword.
- 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:
- 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:
1 more example
- 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: