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 forces that influence school boards include regional accrediting agencies, teach ers colleges, textbook publishers and the National Education Association.

From Time Magazine Archive

Mr. Smith- ers avoided the open manhole, averting a nasty fall. bad/badly.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner