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• ers
  ers

  noun

  ervil.
• ERS
  ERS

  Emergency Radio Service.
• -ers
  -ers

  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

¹ American  

[urs, airs] / ɜrs, ɛərs /

noun

1. ervil.

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ERS ² American  

Or E.R.S.

1. Emergency Radio Service.

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-ers ³ American  

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.

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ERS British  

abbreviation

1. earnings related supplement

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Etymology

Origin of ers¹

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

Origin of -ers³

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); cf. -s ³

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ers ERS -ers

But we lived in a way unimaginable to 9-5 ers.

From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2018

The United States soon got wind of Guevara’s presence and sent CIA agents and military advis ers to assist the regime of René Barrientos.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 5, 2017

Roosevelt Island is fantastic: right in the middle of the Potomac River and filled with woodpeck- ers, frogs, marshes, trails, and a seventeen-foot statue of Roosevelt himself, in shining bronze and larger than life.

From MSNBC ● Sep. 9, 2014

No steamer trunks this trip, though as usual there are a few "ers" in the mixture, for flavor.

From Time Magazine Archive

They were the doctors and dentists and teach- ers and bankers and landowners.

From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau

ERS doesn’t traffic in emotional realism or literal re-creation.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2025

Jess Blair, director of electoral reform campaigners ERS Cymru, said: "Voters are once again at risk of losing out without the ability to choose who replaces their MS."

From BBC ● Jan. 23, 2025

Last year, the government's Nationality and Borders Act extended the early release period allowed under the ERS from nine months to a year.

From BBC ● May 17, 2023

A spokeswoman for ERS said the company had discussed “an investment by a Chinese private equity firm,” but added that it had not yet received any information from the government on a decision.

From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2022

Although the ERS data are helping many plan future observations, most cycle 1 data are still locked up and some will remain so until the second half of 2024.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 2, 2022

Paisley had never been a competitive swimmer or a dancer or any of the other -ers that might help someone dance underwater.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 15, 2018

A -ers gath- -ing moss no roll- stone.

From Little Folks (October 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various