[See def.] The name (more freq. Urals, Ural mountains) of a mountain-chain forming the north-eastern boundary of Europe with Asia, used attrib. in various specific appellations of birds, animals, etc., native to or found in that region, as Ural duck, lizard, etc. (see quots.).
1785. Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, VI. 514. *Ural Duck, anas mersa,… is a trifle bigger than the common Teal.
1881. Lyell, Pigeons, 8. The smooth-legged chequered or spangled ones are known in this country as *Ural ice[-pigeons].
1802. Shaw, Gen. Zool., III. 252. *Ural Lizard, Lacerta Uralensis,… moves with great swiftness.
1781. Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, I. 148. *Ural Owl, Stryx Uralensis,… is very full of feathers.
1824. Stephens, Shaw’s Gen. Zool., XII. II. 218. *Ural Scoter (Oidemia Leucocephala),… Ural Duck [of Latham],… is particularly abundant in Russia, Livonia, and Fionia.
b. Ural-Altaic, pertaining or belonging to the region including the Ural range and the Altaic mountains (in central Asia), its inhabitants, or their speech. Also absol., the family of agglutinative languages spoken in eastern Europe and northern Asia; Turanian; Finno-Tartar.
1855. Max Müller, Lang. Seat of War, 96. The third or Turkic branch of the Ural-Altaic division.
1880. Sayce, Introd. Sci. Lang., viii. II. 194. It seems to have been a possession of the undivided Ural-Altaic community.
1888. A. H. Keane, in Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 1/2. Hence it is that the roots … in Ural-Altaic are always in evidence.
