ur-race

noun

A primitive, primordial, or original race; a proto-race

Meanings

ur-race1

nounur-race (plural ur-races)

plural ur-races · alternative Ur-race

  1. A primitive, primordial, or original race; a proto-race

    Günther adduced from this fact that the characteristics of the ur-race could be determined from close observation of contemporary Armenians.

    2009, Alan E Steinweis, Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany - Page 28
    2 more examples

    The Jew, then, was at once seen as the definitive race and an equivocal one – at once the embodiment of an Ur-race and the composite body of a mongrel race.

    2008, Daniel A. Novak, Realism, Photography and Nineteenth-Century Fiction - Page 108

    “Aryanism” broadened but also still racialized ideas about the origins of civilization by incorporating all speakers of Indo-European languages, including Indian speaker of Sanskrit-based tongues, into a single, civilizing ur-race, as in Sir Henry Maine's Taming Cannibals.

    2011, Patrick Brantlinger, Taming Cannibals: Race and the Victorians - Page 118

Ur-race2

nounUr-race (plural Ur-races)

plural Ur-races

  1. alternativeAlternative form of ur-race.

Origin

From ur- (“primal, original”) + race.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

ur-race. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ur-race

MLA

“ur-race.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ur-race. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ur-race,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ur-race.

Source: ur-race on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.