Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Being a usually inferior imitation or substitute; artificial.
- adjective Not genuine; fake.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Made in
imitation ;artificial , especially of aninferior quality . - noun : Something made in
imitation ; aneffigy orsubstitute .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective artificial and inferior
- noun an artificial or inferior substitute or imitation
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I went back to the saucer and got one of the picnic blankets we'd taken from the spome, came back to the little pool and sat again, all wrapped up, looking out over ersatz cityscape, remembering that where my dad had taken German in college, Murray's dad had taken French, so Murray would say _faux, _ where I said _ersatz_.
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MANKOFF: One of the things about humor is I think, it is what I call ersatz humor, not your stuff of course, but the politicians 'stuff, where it sort of -- it is actually not meant to be very funny, you see it in advertising, I mean that is the whole point.
CNN Transcript - Special Event: Millennium 2000: Humor Roundtable - January 1, 2000 2000
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The_Hat fought like a dream, and together we wallowed in ersatz murderous play for what felt like hours, but was mere minutes.
Kurtzhau! (Fighting within the system) zornhau 2008
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First of all let me congratulate you on the basis that any time you can work the word ersatz into a discussion, its a good one.
Baseball Analysts 2009
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First of all let me congratulate you on the basis that any time you can work the word ersatz into a discussion, its a good one.
Baseball Analysts 2009
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First of all let me congratulate you on the basis that any time you can work the word ersatz into a discussion, its a good one.
Baseball Analysts 2009
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First of all let me congratulate you on the basis that any time you can work the word ersatz into a discussion, its a good one.
Baseball Analysts 2009
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The button got quite the workout during this exercise in ersatz ‘60s hipness, with Ann-Margret as a decent Midwestern girl pretending to be a hellion so she can be published in a smut rag.
VinceKeenan.com 2009
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Dubbed "ersatz capitalism" in the 1980s by economist Kunio Yoshihara, this is why it's rare for entrepreneurs to make the list of the region's richest men as happens regularly in Europe and North America.
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February 21st, 2009 at 1: 38 pm it would be interesting to try to learn more about that and see how much they acted as a kind of ersatz prison system.
Matthew Yglesias » Out of the Insane Asylum, and Into the Prison 2009
bilby commented on the word ersatz
"He went back into the bathroom and used the mouthwash to rinse away the last of the toothpaste. It was a non-alcoholic mouthwash. Like the cough medicine. And the ersatz vanilla in the cupboard. He had not taken a drink since completing the last Stark novel."
- 'The Dark Half', Stephen King.
December 31, 2007
ofravens commented on the word ersatz
Although the rains dissolve a bloody dye:
The ersatz petals drip, and they drip red
from "Electra on Azalea Path," by Sylvia Plath
April 8, 2008
smeggo commented on the word ersatz
Faux sure.
December 7, 2008
bilby commented on the word ersatz
If hearts/ersatz is any guide, qms is rapidly becoming the limerick Bob Dylan of fanciful definitions.
April 27, 2014
qms commented on the word ersatz
I am pleased that someone read one of my limericks but I do not know what color to adopt. Should I be empinked with pride or empurpled with rage? Is Dylan’s reputation as a rhymer one of precision or wild abandon? I am afraid I share the opinion of the estimable Katherine Powers that Dylan is a tiresome mountebank. However, my confidence in Bilby’s benevolence persuades me that praise was intended.
April 28, 2014
bilby commented on the word ersatz
Gorn, empink yersel'.
April 28, 2014
qms commented on the word ersatz
False, fake and faux do not mean uncouth.
Why many good words to signal untruth?
Perhaps in our hearts
We love what's ersatz.
We cherish the phony and sham, forsooth.
This is a reposting to remedy an inadvertent deletion. (Damned touchy, those iPad screens.) Ersatz was the Word of the Day on April 26, 2014, when this limerick was originally posted.)
August 16, 2014