ers

¹

[urs, airs]

noun

1. ervil.

ERS

²

Or E.R.S.

1. Emergency Radio Service.

-ers

³

1. a semantically empty suffix that creates informal variations of more neutral nouns and adjectives by processes of truncation identical to those of -er (champers; preggers; starkers ); unlike that suffix, however, -ers is apparently productive, and words formed with it do not appear to belong to a restricted linguistic register, as university slang.

ERS

abbreviation

1. earnings related supplement

Word History and Origins

Origin of ers¹

Middle French < Old Provençal < Late Latin ervus, variant of Latin ervum. See ervil

Origin of ers²

Perhaps a conflation of -er ⁷ with the final element of bonkers and crackers in the sense “wild, crazy” (unless these words themselves contain this suffix); -s ³