Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The original text, as of a musical score or a literary work.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A primitive, seminal, or prototypical example of an artistic genre or the basis of an ideological movement.
  • noun music The original version of a piece of music, as created by the composer.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German : ur-, original; see Ursprache + Text, text (from Middle High German, from Late Latin textus); see text.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ur- +‎ text

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Examples

  • Critics, meanwhile, judge performances by the degree of textual fidelity to the "urtext" -- a score that tries to reproduce the composer's original intent.

    What Music Has Lost James F. Penrose 2008

  • Mr. Orenstein's "Mother Goose" edition, a so-called urtext, will contain textual notes setting out the differences between the composer's manuscript and the existing Durand score to accompany the musicologist's corrected score.

    Four Lost Measures Found Anne S. Lewis 2011

  • Reading the French that I don't understand parts of, and the English that I don ‎ 't feel is quite right, has left me with the strange sensation that the book I'm actually reading is a third version, a sort of urtext, which is not written.

    Qwaider Planet 2008

  • Reading the French that I don't understand parts of, and the English that I don ‎ 't feel is quite right, has left me with the strange sensation that the book I'm actually reading is a third version, a sort of urtext, which is not written.

    Qwaider Planet 2008

  • Reading the French that I don't understand parts of, and the English that I don ‎ 't feel is quite right, has left me with the strange sensation that the book I'm actually reading is a third version, a sort of urtext, which is not written.

    Qwaider Planet 2008

  • Reading the French that I don't understand parts of, and the English that I don ‎ 't feel is quite right, has left me with the strange sensation that the book I'm actually reading is a third version, a sort of urtext, which is not written.

    Qwaider Planet 2008

  • Reading the French that I don't understand parts of, and the English that I don ‎ 't feel is quite right, has left me with the strange sensation that the book I'm actually reading is a third version, a sort of urtext, which is not written.

    Qwaider Planet 2008

  • Reading the French that I don't understand parts of, and the English that I don ‎ 't feel is quite right, has left me with the strange sensation that the book I'm actually reading is a third version, a sort of urtext, which is not written.

    Qwaider Planet 2008

  • When Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd wrote the value-investing urtext, Security Analysis, in 1934, the rules were more hard-and-fast.

    What Would Warren Do? 2009

  • When Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd wrote the value-investing urtext, Security Analysis, in 1934, the rules were more hard-and-fast.

    What Would Warren Do? 2009

Comments

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  • Earliest version of a text; original unmodified version. (from Phrontistery)

    May 25, 2008

  • Some scholars believe Shakespeare's Hamlet was based upon an earlier text that has not survived, and refer to that work as Ur-Hamlet.

    September 16, 2009