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Definition 2024


Ersatz

Ersatz

See also: ersatz

German

Noun

Ersatz m (genitive Ersatzes, plural Ersätze)

  1. replacement, substitute
  2. compensation

Declension

Derived terms

Descendants

ersatz

ersatz

See also: Ersatz

English

Adjective

ersatz (comparative more ersatz, superlative most ersatz)

  1. Made in imitation; artificial, especially of a poor quality.
    Back then, we could only get ersatz coffee.

Synonyms

Quotations

  • 1923, Arthur Michael Samuel, The Mancroft Essays, Pinchbeck, page 164 (possibly published before in The Saturday Review in 1917–1921):
    In these days of “rolled” gold, electro-plate, and undetectable pearls, it is curious that almost the only honest Ersatz material known to the goldsmith's art should be utterly forgotten.
  • 1929, "Zeppelining," Time, 16 Sep.,
    Ersatzgas, Ersatzpfennige. Ersatz has become a brave word in Germany. As a substantive it means War Reparations. As part of compounded words it means substitute.
  • 2001, The New Yorker, 15 Oct,
    The avant-garde's opposite number, in Greenberg's scheme, is kitsch, "ersatz culture"—art for capitalism's new man (who turns out to be no different from Fascism's or Communism's new man).
  • 2003, The New Yorker, 17 & 24 Feb,
    The NATO visitors watched an ersatz eighteenth-century dance (complete with powdered wigs and simulated copulation) that might have been considered obscene had it not been so amusing.
  • 2004, The New Yorker, 31 May,
    The crowd wandered out to a huge party on the ersatz city blocks of the Paramount lot.

Noun

ersatz (plural ersatzes)

  1. Something made in imitation; an effigy or substitute.
    (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought):

Synonyms

Translations


French

Etymology

Borrowing from German Ersatz.

Noun

ersatz m (plural ersatz)

  1. ersatz