Word.ws English Dictionary

ersatz

Syllables: er·satz/ˈɜːsæts/UK/ˈɛəzæts/

ersatz adjective: an inauthentic or inadequate substitute or imitation.

Adjective

ersatz (comparative more ersatz, superlative most ersatz)

  1. An inauthentic or inadequate substitute or imitation.
    • Back then, we could only get ersatz coffee.
    • 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.1923, Arthur Michael Samuel, “Pinchbeck”, in The Mancroft Essays, page 164

Noun

ersatz (plural ersatzes)

  1. Something made in imitation; an effigy or substitute.
    • The important point I want to emphasize here is that, regardless of a Government agency's conception of what a consumer expects of a food item, by and large the consumer detests the use of chemicals in foods as substitutes for nutritious, wholesome natural ingredients which improve flavor and...1951, United States Congress, Chemicals in Food Products, U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 400
    • What intrigues us is what will happen when the ersatzes for the ersatzes come along. Will characters start substituting for actors, bona fide dogs for barking ladies; will people start looking at people again instead of television and at nature instead of at documentaries?1955 June 30, “Ersatzes for Ersatzes”, in The Christian Science Monitor, volume 47, number 182
    Synonyms:
    imitation, knock off

ersatz meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

ersatz in Urdu

بدل, عوض

ersatz in Bengali

নকল, ভাঁওতা

ersatz in Malayalam

imitation, artificial, substitute
മൂലവസ്തുവിന്റെ തരംതാണ അനുകരണമായ, കൃത്രിമ, പകരംവസ്തുവായ, കൃത്രിമാനുകരണമായ, കൃത്രിമമായി നിർമ്മിച്ച, കലാഭാസമായ

ersatz in Kannada

ಬೇರೆಯವರನ್ನು ನೋಡಿ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು, ಕಡಿಮೆ ಗುಣಮಟ್ಟದ
More languagesFewer languages
ersatz in Tagalog
peke

Examples of ersatz in a sentence

  • Ersatz has become a brave word in Germany.[1929 September 16, “Zeppelining”, in Time:
  • Everything is ersatz [translating German Ersatz]—vulgarity is everywhere I look.”1977, Robin Smyth, transl., Mephisto, New York: Random House, translation of original by Klaus Mann, page 70:
  • 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).2001 October 15, “(please specify the article title)”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC:
  • 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.2003 February 17, David Remnick, “Exit the Castle: Václav Havel”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC:

All 12 example sentences with ersatz

Synonyms of ersatz

All synonyms of ersatz

Forms of ersatz

Adjective
comparativemore ersatz
superlativemost ersatz
Noun
pluralersatzes

Origin of ersatz

Borrowed from German Ersatz (“replacement, substitute”), a back-formation from ersetzen (“to replace, to substitute”).

Words formed from ersatz

Questions about ersatz

What does ersatz mean?
Ersatz means an inauthentic or inadequate substitute or imitation.
What is ersatz in Urdu?
Ersatz in Urdu is بدل, عوض. See Ersatz meaning in Urdu.
How do you use ersatz in a sentence?
Ersatz has become a brave word in Germany.
What part of speech is ersatz?
Ersatz can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce ersatz?
Ersatz is pronounced /ˈɛəzæts/ (UK).

Words near ersatz in the dictionary

  1. erryday
  2. errything
  3. ers
  4. Ersa
  5. Ersange
  6. ersatz
  7. ersatzer
  8. ersatzers
  9. ersatzes
  10. ersatzism
  11. ersatzist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ersatz (page history and authors); ersatz (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ersatz (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ersatz (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ersatz (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ersatz.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ersatz.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ersatz. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.