ur-word

plural ur-words · alternative urword

1. An original or primal word; a protoword.

   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

   2 more examples

   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

   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