er
verbEtymology Mimetic (sound of hesitation).
1
Informal To utter the word er when hesitating in speech.
- um and er
- He ummed and erred his way through the presentation.
er
intjUS /ɜɹ/ · /ɜː/
Etymology Mimetic (sound of hesitation).
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:
2 more examples
- If he—er—disappears—well, it seems to me that we'd both benefit.2012, Linda Miller, Desire and Destiny:
- Liquid Samurai: 'FORMLESS AND INFINITE ARE WE, THE LIQUID SAMURAI. I SERVE MY QUEEN, AS WE HAVE FOR COUNTLESS--' / Mona: 'HEY, I DON'T MEAN TO INTERRUPT, BUT YOU SEEM LIKE YOU'RE MADE OF POWERFUL STUFF. CAN I, ER, STUDY YOU?'2019 December 10, Yacht Club Games, "Story" (Mona), in Shovel Knight Showdown (version 4.1), Nintendo Switch