Original

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The prefix Ur- is used to refer to a thing long past, old or original. The meaning "at the beginning, originally" is derived from Old High German ur (only 8th / 9th century), Old Norse ōr or Gothic us: "from, from ... out". Apt examples are: Ur guessed , great time , great forest , great customer and the great leaps even in the sense of "starting point", the prefix is also used in. Premiere , instinct , Big Bang or original language .

In the sense of “at the beginning, originally”, the prefix is ​​also used to reinforce ( augmentative ) and increase ( elative ) some adjectives : ur old , ur Germanic , ur American , ur eigen and even ur initially .

To increase it, the prefix “great-” is used for ancestor generations : the parents of a person's grandparents are the great- grandparents , whose parents are the great-great- grandparents, and so on (see generation names ). The prefix is ​​also used for descendants : The children of grandchildren are great- grandchildren, their children are great-great- grandchildren (see Ur- under kinship terms ).

A completely different meaning in the sense of "great, excellent, excellent" is derived from the old cattle Ur or Urochs ( Aurochs , extinct in 1627), but corresponding formations are ancient: Ur gaul , Ur sau or Urkämpe . Since the 1980s, this meaning can be found in Eastern Austrian German as a reinforcement phrase for the youth language , especially in Viennese ; for example, something is described as extremely dangerous (“particularly dangerous”). Some already reinforcing buzzwords are thereby increased ( excess ): ur cool or ur cool .

The derivation of the “great” father Abraham is only popular because he came from the Sumerian city of Ur - but in this case the syllable is close to the prefix ore , from ancient Greek archē “the first, the beginning”.

See also

literature

Lexicon entry: Ur. In: Johann Christoph Adelung : Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect. Volume 4. Leipzig 1801, pp. 956–958, quote: “Ur, a very old word, not only in German, but almost in all languages, which in German only has a few nominal words and a few verbs derived therefrom is common. There it means […] “: 6 different meanings.

Web links

Wiktionary: original  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Word entry: ur-. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved July 30, 2019
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Pfeifer u. a .: Etymological dictionary of German. Volume 3. 1st edition. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-05-000626-9 , page 1878.
  3. ↑ encyclopaedia entry: Ur ... . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 19, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1909, p.  949 . Complete quote: "Ur ..., prefix to denote the relationship to the first beginning of something, z. B. ancestor, origin, certificate etc. (Old German as much as forth, from). "
  4. ↑ Duden online : ancient, ancient Germanic, ancient American , original, original, all accessed on July 30, 2019.
  5. ↑ Lexicon entry: Ur 1). In: Johann Christoph Adelung : Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect. Volume 4. Leipzig 1801, p. 956, quote: “1. Big, and after a very close figure also excellent, excellent, as long as physical size and strength were formerly the most distinguished and almost only essential advantage [...] ”.
  6. ↑ Program announcement: Snapshot: Kenya, 13.01.13. (No longer available online.) In: Miniversum. Okidoki children's program, January 13, 2013, archived from the original on November 4, 2013 ; accessed on July 30, 2019 : "Hyenas are very dangerous."
  7. ↑ Duden online : urcool, urgeil, all accessed on July 30, 2019; Quote: "Usage: especially Austrian youth language".
  8. ↑ Lexicon entry: Ur 3). In: Johann Christoph Adelung : Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect. Volume 4. Leipzig 1801, p. 956, quote: “3. The first in a thing, a beginning, one of the oldest meanings […] ”.