Word.ws English Dictionary

urstromtal

Syllables: ur·strom·tal/ˈʊəstɹəʊmˌtɑːl//ˈʊɹstɹoʊmˌtɑl/

urstromtal noun: a broad glacial valley formed during an ice age by meltwater flowing roughly parallel to the ice margin.

urstromtal: a broad glacial valley formed during an ice age by meltwater flowing roughly parallel to the ice...
Image: Krzysztof, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

urstromtal (plural urstromtäler or urstromtals)

  1. A broad glacial valley formed during an ice age by meltwater flowing roughly parallel to the ice margin.
    • On the southern margin the plateau falls to a sandy outwash plain which merges into the zone of urstromtäler.1950, Margaret Reid Shackleton, Europe: A Regional Geography, London: Longmans, Green and Co., →OCLC, page 263
    • This high urstromtal is drained in part by the Notec and Warta rivers; it varies greatly in width with basin-shaped widenings and narrow stretches between, but can be traced for an east-west distance of some 400 miles from the Vistula to the Elbe.1961, Geomorphological Abstracts, number 29, London: K. M. Clayton, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 23

Forms of urstromtal

pluralurstromtäler
pluralurstromtals
alternative formUrstromtal

Origin of urstromtal

Unadapted borrowing from German Urstromtal, from ur- (prefix meaning ‘original; primitive’) + Strom (“large river; stream”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (“to flow; stream”)) + Tal (“valley”) (ultimate etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰól(h₂)os). The plural form urstromtäler is also an unadapted borrowing from German Urstromtäler.

Questions about urstromtal

What does urstromtal mean?
Urstromtal means a broad glacial valley formed during an ice age by meltwater flowing roughly parallel to the ice margin.
What part of speech is urstromtal?
Urstromtal is a noun.
How do you pronounce urstromtal?
Urstromtal is pronounced /ˈʊəstɹəʊmˌtɑːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of urstromtal?
The plural of urstromtal is urstromtäler.

Words near urstromtal in the dictionary

  1. ursons
  2. ursophile
  3. ursophiles
  4. Ursprache
  5. Ursprachen
  6. urstromtal
  7. urstromtals
  8. urstromtäler
  9. Ursua
  10. Ursuas
  11. ursuk

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: urstromtal (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-urstromtal.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-urstromtal.wav.

Cite this entry: “urstromtal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/urstromtal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.