WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026
ers
(ûrs, ârs),USA pronunciation n.
ERS,
-ers,
- ervil.
- Late Latin ervus, variant of Latin ervum. See ervil
- Old Provencal
- Middle French
ERS,
- Radio and TelevisionEmergency Radio Service.
-ers,
- a semantically empty suffix that creates informal variations of more neutral nouns and adjectives by processes of truncation identical to those of -er 7 (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.
- compare -s3 perh. a conflation of -er7 with the final element of bonkers and crackers (unless these words themselves contain this suffix)
'ers' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Barchester Towers
- Brothers Karamazov, The
- Card Players, The
- Central Powers
- Chinese checkers
- Council of Economic Advisers
- Farmers Branch
- Farmers' Alliance
- Fort Myers
- Future Farmers of America
- Hundred Flowers
- Industrial Workers of the World
- Johnny smokers
- League of Women Voters
- ape hangers
- ass
- bankers' hours
- bloody butchers
- bonkers
- buyers' inflation
- buyers' market
- buyers' strike
- champers
- cleavers
- clivers
- cracker
- dot matrix
- dundrearies
- er
- ervil
- farmers cooperative
- farmers' market
- fistula
- flowers of sulfur
- flowers of tan
- flowers of zinc
- founders' shares
- founders' type
- foyer
- fresher
- frost feathers
- frost flowers
- fuss and feathers
- groper
- grouper
- hearts and flowers
- hewers of wood and drawers of water
- ice feathers
- ice flowers
- leg warmers