Ersatz
WordNet
adjective
(1) Artificial and inferior
"Ersatz coffee"
"Substitute coffee"
noun
(2) An artificial or inferior substitute or imitation
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From the ; and from the verb .
Adjective
- Made in imitation; artificial, especially of an inferior quality.
- Back then, we could only get ersatz coffee.
Quotations
- 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
- Something made in imitation; an effigy or substitute.