er

Interjection

1. (informal) Said when hesitating in speech.
   • “Er...Feathered Omen, hoot not,” he continued uneasily, “Son of Tanit, hoot not!”1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 11
   • As the years go by, speech reverts to childhood levels of disfluency, with more pauses, more errors, more repeated words, but even the peak years are not great: up to 8 percent of the average person’s word output consists of meaningless fillers and placeholders like um, uh and er.2007 August 24, William Grimes, “Uh, Lead My Rips: No More Bloopers”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2013

   Synonyms:

   ah, eh, erm, uh, um

Verb

er (third-person singular simple present ers, present participle erring, simple past and past participle erred)

1. (informal, intransitive, transitive) To utter the word er when hesitating in speech.
   • um and er
   • He ummed and erred his way through the presentation.

   Synonyms:

   ah, eh, um, hem and haw

Noun (1)

er (plural ers)

1. An occurrence of the interjection "er".
   • Although Shakespeare refers to “hums and ha’s,” sifting through etiquette manuals and public-speaking guides turns up scant evidence of a prohibition against ums, ers and uhs, which are profuse in the first recording of Thomas Edison’s voice, in 1888. Mr. Erard, rather ingeniously, traces the...2007 August 24, William Grimes, “Uh, Lead My Rips: No More Bloopers”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2013

Noun (2)

er (plural ers)

1. The name of the Cyrillic script letter Р / р.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: ER

ER

1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Elizabeth Regina (“Queen Elizabeth”).
2. (UK, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Edward Rex (on coins, letterboxes, etc.) The royal cypher for Edward VII, king of Great Britain

   Synonyms:

   EVIIR

3. (US, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Eleanor Roosevelt.
4. (US, abbreviation) Abbreviation of Erie (“Erie, Pennsylvania, USA”).

Noun (3) capitalized: ER

ER (countable and uncountable, plural ERs)

1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of earned run.
2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of endoplasmic reticulum.
3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of entity-relationship.
4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of emergency room.
5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of estrogen receptor.
6. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Einstein-Rosen bridge.
7. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of enhanced radiation.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Er

Er (countable and uncountable, plural Ers)

1. A surname.