from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- Known in biblical times as Ur of the Chal·dees (kălˈdēzˌ, kăl-dēzˈ)Ur A city of ancient Sumer in southern Mesopotamia on a site in present-day southeast Iraq. One of the oldest cities in Mesopotamia, it was an important center of Sumerian culture after c. 3000 B.C. and the birthplace of Abraham. The city declined after the sixth century B.C.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- proper n. An ancient city in Mesopotamia.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. The urus.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Used substantively in the quotation.
- n. A chemical symbol of uranium, less commonly used than the single letter U.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. an ancient city of Sumer located on a former channel of the Euphrates River
Sorry, no etymologies found.
I confess, indeed, that the name Ur is derived from fire: names, however, are wont to be assigned to cities, either from their situation, or from some particular event.
How else could the perceptive writers of the scriptures present their meaning to the ordinary people who lived in Ur of the Chaldees or wandered through the deserts and the pastures of Mesopotamia?
They were akin, perhaps, to the Hebrews, as Abraham's sojourn in Ur, and the name "Chesed," a nephew of Abraham, imply.
And yet this was not the worst; their fathers had served other gods in Ur of the Chaldees (Josh.xxiv. 2); even in Jacob's family there were strange gods, Gen. xxxv.
Ancient places with such Seussian names as Uruk, Eridu and Kish -- to say nothing of that ur-urban place called Ur -- were in fact the world's first real cities, the show argues, with a level of social organization that can truly be called civilized.
I asked myself that, and answered that as well ask how it came that the Sumerians, whose great city the Bible calls Ur of the Chaldees, spoke a Mongolian language.
How they are here directed to look back to their original, and the smallness of their beginning: "Look unto the rock whence you were hewn" (the idolatrous family in Ur of the
And the name of the priest thereof is called Ur-Tenten unto this day.
We have here a hymn purified from all association with the incantation texts, and there is every reason to believe that it was composed for use in the great temple at Ur, which is mentioned in the opening lines.
Now Abram had two brethren, Nahor and Haran: of these Haran left a son, Lot; as also Sarai and Milcha his daughters; and died among the Chaldeans, in a city of the Chaldeans, called Ur; and his monument is shown to this day.