urtext

[ur-tekst, oor-]

noun

(sometimes initial capital letter)

1. the original form of a text, especially of a musical composition.

Urtext

/ ˈuːrtɛkst /

noun

1. the earliest form of a text as established by linguistic scholars as a basis for variants in later texts still in existence

2. an edition of a musical score showing the composer's intentions without later editorial interpolation

Word History and Origins

Origin of urtext¹

First recorded in 1950–55; ur- ³ + text

Word History and Origins

Origin of urtext¹

from ur- original + _text

Example Sentences

If 2022 had an urtext, though, it was “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which with 11 nominations and a clutch of influential guild awards is the presumed front-runner for best picture.

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“Bridget Jones’s Diary,” by Helen Fielding, about a contemporary London singleton looking for love, is the urtext here.

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He said, “We have an 18-volume set of the complete keyboard works in urtext editions; would you like one?”

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In the history of underdog sports stories, I think I may have found the urtext: a dramatic true tale of unlikely triumph over adversity and the odds — by a team of plucky orphans no less — so primal and insistently button-pushing that it seems to have inspired all other similarly themed athletic fictions that came after it.

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Over the years, this article would become famous, and then infamous, as the urtext of a very influential theory of policing.

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