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); -s ³

Example Sentences

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

The Israelis apparently were searching for Lebanese Communist lead ers who they suspected might have sought refuge in the embassy.

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