Definify.com
Webster 1828 Edition
Er
ER
, the termination of many English words, is the Teutonic form of the Latin or; the one contracted from wer, the other from vir, a man. It denotes an agent, originally of the masculine gender, but now applied to men or things indifferently; as in farmer, heater, grater. At the end names of places, er signifies a man of the place; Londoner is the same as London-man.Definition 2024
Er
er
er
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɜː/
- Used in non-rhotic dialects. Compare uh.
Interjection
er
- Said when hesitating in speech.
Verb
er (third-person singular simple present ers, present participle erring, simple past and past participle erred)
- (informal) To utter the word "er" when hesitating in speech, found almost exclusively in the phrase um and er.
- He ummed and erred his way through the presentation.
See also
Statistics
Anagrams
Alemannic German
Pronoun
er m
Declension
nominative | accusative | dative | possessive | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st person singular | ich, i | mich, mi | mir, mer | miin | |
2nd person singular | familiar | du | dich | dir | diin |
polite | Si | Ine, Ene | Ire | ||
3rd person singular | m | er | in | im | siin |
f | si | ire | |||
n | es | im | siin | ||
1st person plural | mir | öis | öise | ||
2nd person plural | ir | öi | öie | ||
3rd person plural | si | ine, ene | ire |
Breton
Contraction
er
- e (preposition "in") + ur (indefinite article "a(n)")
- e (preposition "in") + ar (definite article "the")
Cornish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [eːɹ]
Etymology 1
From Proto-Celtic *eriro- (“eagle”) (compare Breton erer, Welsh eryr, Old Irish irar), from Proto-Indo-European *or (“large bird”).
Noun
Etymology 2
Noun
er m (plural erys)
Etymology 3
Non-lemma forms.
Noun
er
- Soft mutation of ger.
Dutch
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɛr/, /ər/, /dər/
Etymology 1
Weak form of der, the unstressed form of daar ("there")
Adverb
er
- there (unspecific to distance)
- (with a preposition) him, her, it, them.
- Ik heb ermee gewerkt.
- I have worked with it/them.
- Je **** er de bergen boven zien.
- You can see the mountains above it/them.
- Ik heb ermee gewerkt.
Usage notes
- Er is an unstressed variety of hier and daar, used when it is not needed to emphasize the specific location relative to the speaker.
- With a preposition, er is used instead of hem, haar, het, ze to create a pronominal adverb. See also Category:Dutch pronominal adverbs.
Etymology 2
From Old Dutch iro, genitive of the personal pronoun (3rd person plural).
Adverb
er
- (partitive pronoun) of them, of those (often not translated in English)
- Mijn broer heeft drie kinderen en ik heb er twee.
- My brother has three children and I have two. (literally: two of those)
- Ik zie er geen meer.
- I don't see any more (of them).
- Mijn broer heeft drie kinderen en ik heb er twee.
Synonyms
Derived terms
See Category:Dutch pronominal adverbs
Related terms
See also
Anagrams
Faroese
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [er]
Verb
er
Conjugation
German
Etymology
From Old High German er, from Proto-Germanic *iz. Displaced the northern Old High German forms with h-, e.g. hē, her (see he).
Pronunciation
- (standard) IPA(key): /eːɐ̯/, /ɛʁ/
- Rhymes: -eːɐ̯
- (colloquially in unstressed position) IPA(key): /ɐ/
Pronoun
er
- (personal) he.
- Wo ist Klaus? Wo ist er? — Where is Klaus? Where is he?
- Clemens Brentano, Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schönen Annerl (edited). In: 1835, F. W. Gubitz (editor), Jahrbuch des Nützlichen und Unterhaltenden für 1835, p. 171:
- Da fuhr die Alte überraſcht auf und ſprach: Lieber Herr, gehe er doch nach Haus und bete er fein und lege er ſich ſchlafen.
- (personal) it (when the grammatical gender of the object/article/thing/animal etc., being referred to, is masculine (der)).
- Dies ist mein Hund. Er heißt Waldi. — This is my dog. Its name is Waldi.
- Dort steht ein Baum. Er ist über hundert Jahre alt. — There stands a tree. It is more than 100 years old.
Inflection
nominative | accusative | genitive | dative | possessive | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st person singular | ich | mich | meiner († mein) |
mir | mein | |
2nd person singular (familiar)1 | du | dich | deiner († dein) |
dir | dein | |
3rd person singular | m | er | ihn | seiner († sein) |
ihm | sein |
f | sie | ihrer | ihr | |||
n | es | seiner († sein) |
ihm | sein | ||
1st person plural | wir | uns | unser | uns | unser | |
2nd person plural (familiar) | ihr | euch | euer | euch | euer | |
3rd person plural | sie | ihrer | ihnen | ihr | ||
polite address | naturally: 2. person sg. or pl.; grammatically: 3. person pl. |
Sie | Ihrer | Ihnen | Ihr |
1Often capitalized, especially in letters
In contemporary German, the genitive forms of personal pronouns are restricted to formal style and are infrequent even then. They may be used
- for the genitive object still found in a handful of verbs: Ich erbarmte mich seiner. – "I had mercy on him". (Colloquially one would either use the dative case, or a prepositional object, or replace the verb with another.)
- after the preposition statt ("instead of, in place of"): Ich kam statt seiner in die Mannschaft. – I joined the team in his place. (This sounds antiquated, for which reason an seiner Statt or an seiner Stelle is preferable.)
Hunsrik
Alternative forms
- ëyer (Portuguese based orthography)
Etymology
From Old High German er, from Proto-Germanic *iz. Displaced the northern Old High German forms with h-, e.g. hē, her (see he).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈɛɐ/
Pronoun
er
Inflection
nominative | accusative | dative | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Proclitic | Enclitic | str. | unstr. | str. | unstr. | |
1st person singular | ich | -ich | mich | — | meer | mer |
2nd person singular (informal) |
du | -du, -de | dich | — | deer | der |
3rd person singular (m) | er, där | -er | ihn | en | ihm | em |
3rd person singular (f) | sie, die | -se | sie / ihns | se | eer | re |
3rd person singular (n) | es, das | 's | es | — | ihm | em |
1st person plural | meer | mer | uns | — | — | — |
2nd person plural | deer | der | eich | — | — | — |
3rd person plural | sie, die | -se | sie | se | denne | – |
Icelandic
Verb
er
- First-person singular indicative present form of vera.
- Third-person singular indicative present form of vera.
Pronoun
er
- (relative) which
- (archaic) in relations with a demonstrative pronoun (this, that, these) or personal pronoun (I, we, they), which represents the genitive of a relative pronoun.
Conjunction
er
- (with an "indexical"; ábendingarorð) of a place, of a time
- Judges 2:19
- En er dómarinn andaðist, breyttu þeir að nýju verr en feður þeirra, með því að elta aðra guði til þess að þjóna þeim og falla fram fyrir þeim. Þeir létu eigi af gjörðum sínum né þrjóskubreytni sinni.
- But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
- En er dómarinn andaðist, breyttu þeir að nýju verr en feður þeirra, með því að elta aðra guði til þess að þjóna þeim og falla fram fyrir þeim. Þeir létu eigi af gjörðum sínum né þrjóskubreytni sinni.
- Þar er ég kom.
- There whence I came.
- Þá er þegar myndin var búin.
- When the movie was finished.
- Judges 2:19
Derived terms
- þá er þegar
Latin
Etymology 1
From Proto-Italic *hēr, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰḗr (“hedgehog”) (whence also Ancient Greek χήρ (khḗr, “hedgehog”)), a root noun from *ǵʰer- (“to be excited, be bristly”), whence also Ancient Greek χοῖρος (khoîros, “young pig”) and Albanian derr (“pig”) from *ǵʰór-yos.[1]
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /eːr/
Noun
ēr m (genitive ēris); third declension
Usage notes
There is some uncertainty as to the exact forms of this word, especially regarding whether the lemma form of this was ēr or ēris, as the forms attested in literature could point to either option. Another form, irim (acc. sing.; found in Plautus, Capt. 184), seems to be a spelling variant.
Inflection
Third declension.
Case | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|
nominative | ēr | ērēs |
genitive | ēris | ērum |
dative | ērī | ēribus |
accusative | ērem | ērēs |
ablative | ēre | ēribus |
vocative | ēr | ērēs |
Related terms
- ērīcius (“hedgehog; picket”)
Etymology 2
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /er/, [ɛr]
Noun
er (indeclinable)
- The name of the letter R.
Usage notes
- Multiple Latin names for the letter R, r have been suggested. The most common is er or a syllabic r, although there is some evidence which also supports, as names for the letter, rē, rrr, ər, rə, and even (in the fourth- or fifth-century first Antinoë papyrus, which gives Greek transliterations of the Latin names of the Roman alphabet’s letters) ιρρε (irrhe).
Coordinate terms
- (Latin’s names for the letters of its own alphabet): ā (A), bē (B), cē (C), dē (D), ē (E), ef (F), gē (G), hā (H), ī (I), kā (K), el (L), em (M), en (N), ō (O), pē (P), kū (Q), er (R), es (S), tē (T), ū (V), ix / īx / ex (X), ȳ/ī graeca/ypsilon (Y), zēta (Z)
References
- ēr in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- er in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- Félix Gaffiot (1934), “ēr”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.
- Arthur E. Gordon, The Letter Names of the Latin Alphabet (University of California Press, 1973; volume 9 of University of California Publications: Classical Studies), especially pages 30–31, 42–44, and 63
- ↑ De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “ēr”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, page 193
Mandarin
Romanization
er
Usage notes
- English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.
Manx
Etymology
Preposition
er
Inflection
Singular | Plural | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Person | 1st | 2nd | 3rd m. | 3rd f. | 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
Normal | orrym | ort | er | urree | orrin | erriu | orroo |
Emphatic | orryms | orts | ersyn | urreeish | orrinyn | erriuish | orroosyn |
Pronoun
er
Derived terms
- ersyn (emphatic)
Old Dutch
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *airiz; see also ær. Cognate with Old Saxon ēr.
Adverb
er (ēr)
- previously, in an earlier period, in a bygone time
- earlier, before a certain time or period
Preposition
er (ēr)
Conjunction
er (ēr)
References
Old High German
Etymology 1
From Proto-Germanic *airiz, whence also Old English ær.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /eːr/
Adjective
ēr
Adverb
ēr
Conjunction
ēr
Preposition
ēr (+ dative)
Etymology 2
From Proto-Germanic *aiz, akin to Old English ār, Old Norse eir.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /eːr/
Noun
ēr n
Etymology 3
From Proto-Germanic *iz (“he”), akin to Gothic 𐌹𐍃 (is, “he”), Latin is (“he”).
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /er/
Pronoun
er
Descendants
References
- Joseph Wright, An Old High German Primer
Old Norse
Etymology
From Old Norse es. The final -s was replaced by -r due to analogy to the plural forms of vera.
Pronoun
er
Conjunction
er
Verb
er
- third-person singular indicative present tense of vera
Descendants
References
- er in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- er in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Old Saxon
Etymology 1
From Proto-Germanic *airiz, whence also Old English ær.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /eɪr/
Adjective
ēr
Declension
Strong declension | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
gender | masculine | neuter | feminine | |||
case | singular | plural | singular | plural | singular | plural |
nominative | ēr | ēre | ēr | ēre | ēr | ēru |
accusative | ērana | ēre | ēr | ēre | ēra | ēru |
genitive | ēres | ērarō | ēres | ērarō | ēraro | ērarō |
dative | ērumu | ērum | ērumu | ērum | ēraro | ērum |
Weak declension | ||||||
gender | masculine | neuter | feminine | |||
case | singular | plural | singular | plural | singular | plural |
nominative | ēro | ēru | ēra | ēru | ēra | ēru |
accusative | ērun | ērun | ēra | ērun | ērun | ērun |
genitive | ērun | ēronō | ērun | ēronō | ērun | ēronō |
dative | ērun | ērum | ērun | ērum | ērun | ērum |
Adverb
ēr
Conjunction
ēr
Preposition
ēr (+ dative)
Etymology 2
From Proto-Germanic *aiz, whence also Old English ār.
Noun
ēr ?
Scots
Verb
er
- (South Scots) Second-person simple present form of ti be
- (South Scots) Plural simple present form of ti be
- (South Scots) First-person singular simple present form of an obscure form of ti be
- A'm er so!
Usage notes
Used emphatically. See ir.
Swedish
Etymology
Contraction of earlier eder, from Old Norse yðr, from Proto-Germanic *izwiz, dative/accusative of *jūz, from Proto-Indo-European *yū́.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /eːr/
Pronoun
er c (neuter possessive only ert, plural era)
- you (plural, object)
- (possessive) your, yours; (speaking to more than one person, about one object)
- (reflexive) of ni; compare yourselves
- Skulle ni vilja lära er jonglera?
- Would you guys like to learn how to juggle?
- Skulle ni vilja lära er jonglera?
Usage notes
- See ni for a note on its use as a courteous 2nd person singular.
- Even though er (2) and its archaic form eder is the possessive pronoun, it does have a genitive form ers and eders, which is only used in expressions like ers majestät (your majesty) and ers höghet (your highness).
Declension
*Not universally accepted.
Turkish
Etymology 1
From Old Turkic er, from Proto-Turkic *ẹ̄r (“early”), which, according to the controversial Altaic hypothesis, is possibly derived from Proto-Altaic *ḗre (“early”).
Adjective
er
References
- *ḗre in Starostin, Sergei; Dybo, Anna; Mudrak, Oleg (2003) Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages (Handbuch der Orientalistik; VIII.8), Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill
Etymology 2
From Old Turkic er, from Proto-Turkic *ēr (“man”), which, according to the controversial Altaic hypothesis, is possibly derived from Proto-Altaic *ā́ri (~ *ḗra) (“man”). Related to noun-forming suffix -er.
Noun
er (definite accusative eri, plural erler)
Declension
benim (my) | singular (tekil) | plural (çoğul) |
---|---|---|
nominative (yalın) | erim | erlerim |
definite accusative (belirtme) | erimi | erlerimi |
dative (yönelme) | erime | erlerime |
locative (bulunma) | erimde | erlerimde |
ablative (çıkma) | erimden | erlerimden |
genitive (tamlayan) | erimin | erlerimin |
senin (your) | singular (tekil) | plural (çoğul) |
nominative (yalın) | erin | erlerin |
definite accusative (belirtme) | erini | erlerini |
dative (yönelme) | erine | erlerine |
locative (bulunma) | erinde | erlerinde |
ablative (çıkma) | erinden | erlerinden |
genitive (tamlayan) | erinin | erlerinin |
onun (her/his/its) | singular (tekil) | plural (çoğul) |
nominative (yalın) | eri | erleri |
definite accusative (belirtme) | erini | erlerini |
dative (yönelme) | erine | erlerine |
locative (bulunma) | erinde | erlerinde |
ablative (çıkma) | erinden | erlerinden |
genitive (tamlayan) | erinin | erlerinin |
bizim (our) | singular (tekil) | plural (çoğul) |
nominative (yalın) | erimiz | erlerimiz |
definite accusative (belirtme) | erimizi | erlerimizi |
dative (yönelme) | erimize | erlerimize |
locative (bulunma) | erimizde | erlerimizde |
ablative (çıkma) | erimizden | erlerimizden |
genitive (tamlayan) | erimizin | erlerimizin |
sizin (your) | singular (tekil) | plural (çoğul) |
nominative (yalın) | eriniz | erleriniz |
definite accusative (belirtme) | erinizi | erlerinizi |
dative (yönelme) | erinize | erlerinize |
locative (bulunma) | erinizde | erlerinizde |
ablative (çıkma) | erinizden | erlerinizden |
genitive (tamlayan) | erinizin | erlerinizin |
onların (their) | singular (tekil) | plural (çoğul) |
nominative (yalın) | erleri | erleri |
definite accusative (belirtme) | erlerini | erlerini |
dative (yönelme) | erlerine | erlerine |
locative (bulunma) | erlerinde | erlerinde |
ablative (çıkma) | erlerinden | erlerinden |
genitive (tamlayan) | erlerinin | erlerinin |
simple present | singular | plural |
---|---|---|
ben (I am) | erim | erlerim* |
sen (you are) | ersin | erlersin* |
o (he/she/it is) | er / erdir | erler* / erlerdir* |
biz (we are) | eriz | erleriz |
siz (you are) | ersiniz | erlersiniz |
onlar (they are) | erler | erlerdir |
simple past | singular | plural |
ben (I was) | erdim | erlerdim* |
sen (you were) | erdin | erlerdin* |
o (he/she/it was) | erdi | erlerdi* |
biz (we were) | erdik | erlerdik |
siz (you were) | erdiniz | erlerdiniz |
onlar (they were) | erdiler | erlerdi |
indirect / unwitnessed past | singular | plural |
ben (I was) | ermişim | erlermişim* |
sen (you were) | ermişsin | erlermişsin* |
o (he/she/it was) | ermiş | erlermiş* |
biz (we were) | ermişiz | erlermişiz |
siz (you were) | ermişsiniz | erlermişsiniz |
onlar (they were) | ermişler | erlermiş |
*Not used, but perhaps rarely - chiefly grammatical formations.
Note: Plural forms are not used with adjectives. |
Verb
er
- reach (imperative)
References
- *ā́ri in Starostin, Sergei; Dybo, Anna; Mudrak, Oleg (2003) Etymological dictionary of the Altaic languages (Handbuch der Orientalistik; VIII.8), Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill
West Frisian
Pronoun
er
Usage notes
- (he): Er is used before the object of the sentence or after the verb, if there is one. It is never the first word of a sentence.
- Doe't er in swolch naam -- "When he took a swallow", (literally "When he a swallow took")
Especially in narrative, er is used in the past tense. In other cases, hy is used.