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er

interjection

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L334084 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ɜː/

intj

Etymology: Mimetic (sound of hesitation).

  1. Said when hesitating in speech.

    “Er...Feathered Omen, hoot not,” he continued uneasily, “Son of Tanit, hoot not!”

    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.

name

Etymology: Abbreviation

  1. Initialism of Elizabeth Regina (“Queen Elizabeth”).
  2. Initialism of Edward Rex (on coins, letterboxes, etc.) The royal cypher for Edward VII, king of Great Britain
  3. Initialism of Eleanor Roosevelt.
  4. Abbreviation of Erie (“Erie, Pennsylvania, USA”).

noun

Etymology: Abbreviation

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

verb

Etymology: Mimetic (sound of hesitation).

  1. To utter the word er when hesitating in speech.

    um and er

    He ummed and erred his way through the presentation.