urform
urform noun: the (real or idealised) version of a transmissible cultural element, such as a word, language, religion, ideology, folktale, melody, meme, etc., which is taken to be the original form from which all other versions have deviated.
Noun
urform (plural urforms)
- The (real or idealised) version of a transmissible cultural element, such as a word, language, religion, ideology, folktale, melody, meme, etc., which is taken to be the original form from which all other versions have deviated.
- Then by careful comparison they constructed a genealogy, finally deriving the outline of the ur-form, from which all other variants stemmed.2003, David M. Hopkin, Soldier and Peasant in French Popular Culture
- Thus he finally was able to present some suppositions about a folktale's origins: the time and place, as well as the urform (basic or original form).2007, Donald Haase, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales
- Synonyms:
- protoform
Synonyms of urform
Forms of urform
| plural | urforms |
|---|---|
| alternative form | ur-form |
Origin of urform
From ur- (“original”) + form.
Questions about urform
- What does urform mean?
- Urform means the (real or idealised) version of a transmissible cultural element, such as a word, language, religion, ideology, folktale, melody, meme, etc., which is taken to be the original form from which all other versions have deviated.
- What part of speech is urform?
- Urform is a noun.
- What is the plural of urform?
- The plural of urform is urforms.
Words near urform in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: urform (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “urform.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/urform. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.