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  • ers
    ers
    noun
  • 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.


ERS 2 American  
Or E.R.S.
  1. Emergency Radio Service.


-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.


ERS British  

abbreviation

  1. earnings related supplement

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

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

View ers who agree are invited to phone or write in support of a new organization called People for the American Way.

From Time Magazine Archive

Not so: the Indo-European word ers, which later became “earth,” has evolved only one animal that I can find mentioned, and it is the aardvark.

From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas

According to the government, ERS enables eligible foreign nationals to be taken out of prison early for the sole purpose of removal or deportation from the UK.

From BBC Mar. 4, 2026

My experience of this ERS production is unique to the moment of my encounter.

From Los Angeles Times Apr. 8, 2025

You might think - as ERS Cymru does - that a system that allowed you to boot out a party, not just the party's MS, would be preferable.

From BBC Jan. 23, 2025

But the German business daily Handelsblatt reported that it involved ERS Electronic, a company focused on cooling technology based in Bavaria.

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

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