What does “Urenkel” mean, and what does the “Ur-” prefix do?

When this grandfather meets his Urenkel for the first time, the word tells you exactly how many generations separate them: Enkel is “grandchild,” and the prefix Ur- (“original, primal”) pushes it one generation further out, to “great-grandchild.” The same prefix works the other direction too — Opa (grandpa) becomes Uropa (great-grandpa), Oma becomes Uroma.

Stack the prefix again for even more distance — Ururgroßvater is “great-great-grandfather” — though in casual speech most people stop counting after Ur-. The same Ur- also shows up outside family trees meaning “earliest” or “primeval,” as in Ursprache (proto-language) or Urzeit (prehistoric times), always pointing back toward an origin.