Ers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A bitter Old World vetch whose small seeds are sometimes used as animal fodder and in some regions eaten as a pulse
2. A kind of wild vetch, a leguminous plant with small pale flowers that is grown in Europe and Asia for forage
3. The name of a Eurasian climbing plant of the pea family, bearing slender pods that contain small, bitter seeds

Etymology: "Ers" is not a word with a history of its own so much as a sound made visible. The source describes "er" as mimetic, meaning it imitates the hesitant noise a speaker makes while searching for the next word. Written forms like "er" and "um" have been used to transcribe that pause in dialogue and transcripts, and "ers" is simply the form of "er" used with a third-person singular subject, as in "she ers" or "he ers." Because the word is an imitation of a noise rather than a borrowing from another language, it has no ancestor in Latin, Greek, or Old English to trace. Its spelling follows the sound itself, which is why it can be read aloud as a stutter-like hum almost anywhere the same hesitation appears.