-ers

See also: ers, ERs, and ERS

English

Etymology

See -er

Suffix

-ers

  1. (informal, originally school slang) Used to form slang or colloquial equivalents of words.
    ‎breakfast + ‎-ers → ‎brekkers
    ‎divinity + ‎-ers → ‎divvers (“the study of religion”)
  2. (informal, originally school slang) Used to form mostly adjectives used informally.

Derived terms

English terms suffixed with -ers

Anagrams

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch -ers, a chiefly dialectal plural morpheme equivalent to standard Dutch -eren (whence Afrikaans -ere).

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Suffix

-ers

  1. forms the plural of three nouns, all of which denote young creatures
    kind (“child”) — kinders (“children”)
    kalf (“calf”) — kalwers (“calves”)
    lam (“lamb”) — lammers (“lambs”)

Usage notes

  • The colloquial plurale tantum goeters (“things, stuff”) is only etymologically an inflection of goed (“a good”), whose true plural is goedere.
  • Two other Afrikaans nouns are backformations from plurals originally using the suffix -ers: eier (“egg”, from Dutch ei) and hoender (“chicken”, from Dutch hoen).
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