prefix, repr. G. (also MHG., OHG.) ur-, denoting ‘primitive, original, earliest,’ and occurring in a few terms, as ur-Hamlet, -origin, -stock.
G. ursprache (= primitive language) has been freq. used in recent English philological works.
[1864. Max Müller, Lect. Sci. Lang. (1871), II. 133. The most troublesome of all vowels, the neutral vowel, sometimes called Urvocal, better Unvocal.]
1889. J. Jacobs, Caxton’s Aesop, I. 37. Any light he can throw on the Ur-origin of the Fables.
1901. Boas, Kyd’s Wks., p. xlv. The Ur-Hamlet may have contained a number of these borrowings.
1909. Proc. Soc. Biblical Archaeology, XXXI. 12 May, 157. The Ur-text, or mother manuscript of the Masoretic Bible.
