Urelement
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A mathematical object which is not a set but which can be an element of a set.
"1996, Scientific Books staff (translators), Yuri L. Ershov, Definability and Computability, Scientific Books, page viii, The introduction of urelements would seem to be a technical improvement; however, now we know that just such an extension of the notion of the admissible set led to the universal theory of computability based on the notion of definability by formulas with (in a broad sense) effective semantics."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"1996, Scientific Books staff (translators), Yuri L. Ershov, Definability and Computability, Scientific Books, page viii, The introduction of urelements would seem to be a technical improvement; however, now we know that just such an extension of the notion of the admissible set led to the universal theory of computability based on the notion of definability by formulas with (in a broad sense) effective semantics."
Etymology
From ur- (“primordial”) + element.
Related phrases
More for "urelement"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.