Ersatz
adj, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 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."
- 2 an artificial or inferior substitute or imitation wordnet
- 1 inauthentic or inadequate substitute or imitation
"Back then, we could only get ersatz coffee."
- 1 artificial and inferior wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"They didn't have real coffee, so they drank ersatz."
Etymology
Borrowed from German Ersatz (“replacement”); and from the German ersetzen (“to replace”, verb).
Related phrases
More for "ersatz"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.