Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for June 2nd 2008:
ersatz • \AIR-sahts\ • adjective
: being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation
Example Sentence:
Finding that appeals to fundamentalist religious beliefs were
profitable in garnering votes, Republicans in the last quarter of
the twentieth century projected some times flimsy, or outright
ersatz relgious feeling into their political rhetoric
Did you know?
“Ersatz” can be traced back in English to 1875, but it really
came into prominence during World War I. Borrowed from
German, where “Ersatz” is a noun meaning “substitute,” the
word was frequently applied as an adjective in English to items
like “coffee” (from acorns) and “flour” (from potatoes)—ersatz
products resulting from the privations of war. By the time World
War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of the word
along with more substitute products, “ersatz” was wholly
entrenched in the language. Today, “ersatz” can be applied to
almost anything that seems like an artificial imitation: “Even
when those marketplaces did succeed, the fun always felt a little
ersatz.” (Malcolm Jones Jr., Newsweek, April 22, 1996)
