ersatz meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

ersatz

adj

UK /ˈɛəzæts/ · US /ˈɛəɹsɑts/

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

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:

4 more examples

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.[1929 September 16, “Zeppelining”, in Time:
“There we are, you see! No discipline, no backbone! Have you by any chance any discipline, sir? Have you any character? Everything is fake. 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:
They forge documents indicating that Winston Churchill plotted World War I; they manufacture an ersatz fossil suggesting that humans have been around as long as apes; they create a pseudo-Gospel supposedly written by Paul in which he claims that Jesus never performed miracles..2000 December 10, Daniel Zalewski, “The Misinformation Age”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Apr 2022:
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:

noun

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

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 quality. The consumer has little to gain in purchasing a product containing questionable ersatzes if his life is to be endangered or he will suffer ill effects.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:

2 more examples

They don't have the skills to tell ersatz magic from the real thing, for as children they daily invested the ersatz with what imagination they had.2003 July 7, A. S. Byatt, “Harry Potter and the Childish Adult”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Feb 2020:
“You do Berlin a disservice, baron. We too have mastered a few things: ersatzes, for instance, and the metaphysics of fictionalism—”2016 [c. 1927], Joanne Turnbull, The Return of Munchausen, New York: New York Review of Books, translation of Возвращение Мюнхгаузена by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, →ISBN, page 5:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.