as in faux
being such in appearance only and made with or manufactured from usually cheaper materials
like everything else the restaurant served, the whipped cream on the dessert was ersatz
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Recent Examples of ersatz
There’s everything from tomatoes to bananas, as well as livestock, along with a duck pond and some ersatz pigeon towers built to hide an ugly structure on the skyline that interrupts the bucolic view.
—
Mark Ellwood, Robb Report, 21 Dec. 2025
James Provost Choosing the proper enclosure for my ersatz test instrument was one of the bigger challenges.
—David Schneider, IEEE Spectrum, 30 Aug. 2025
British puppeteer Rod Hull arrives on set with his ersatz bird that promptly snaps at Carson while playing nice with Richard Pryor on the Tonight Show couch.
—Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 7 Aug. 2025
And poor, engine‑damaging quality or not, the ersatz aviation fuel had to work only once to get a kamikaze plane up and away to hit one of the enemy warships now lazing about in the offing around the Home Islands, often close enough to be spotted from shore with the naked eye.
—Literary Hub, 7 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ersatz
Mark Ellwood, Robb Report, 21 Dec. 2025
James Provost Choosing the proper enclosure for my ersatz test instrument was one of the bigger challenges.
—David Schneider, IEEE Spectrum, 30 Aug. 2025
British puppeteer Rod Hull arrives on set with his ersatz bird that promptly snaps at Carson while playing nice with Richard Pryor on the Tonight Show couch.
—Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 7 Aug. 2025
And poor, engine‑damaging quality or not, the ersatz aviation fuel had to work only once to get a kamikaze plane up and away to hit one of the enemy warships now lazing about in the offing around the Home Islands, often close enough to be spotted from shore with the naked eye.
—Literary Hub, 7 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ersatz
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ersatz
Adjective
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The hiker aesthetic is rounded out with hardware trims on the Ghillie laces and a warm faux-fur lining.—
Karla Rodriguez,
Footwear News,
11 Feb. 2026
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For bird lovers who want to recreate this whimsical display, fill a medium-size pot with about three-quarters full with potting mix, then place a faux bird's nest from the crafts shop on top (lightly fill it with potting mix as well).—
Miranda Crowell,
Better Homes & Gardens,
11 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Ideal for the ultimate no-makeup makeup look, for which Westman is known, the innovative blush harnesses biomimicry pigment technology, which lessens the risk of inflammation by encapsulating the synthetic pigments in the blush.—
Jenny Berg,
Vogue,
9 Feb. 2026
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And the best way to sidestep that is by picking a pair of socks made from a moisture-wicking blend—ideally a combination of merino wool (at least 50 percent) and synthetic materials.—
Jonathan Thompson,
Travel + Leisure,
9 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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The agency allegedly used Bank of America accounts to lure young women with fake modeling offers, while financial records suggest the bank was aware of these suspicious connections, according to plaintiff’s claims.—
Charlotte Observer,
Charlotte Observer,
13 Feb. 2026
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Some guests got very into it—one adopted a fake British accent for the duration.—
Rachel Syme,
New Yorker,
13 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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This cake requires a fine balance of enough food dye for a vibrant interior without making the cake taste artificial.—
Alana Al-Hatlani,
Southern Living,
14 Feb. 2026
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Its co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei has promised a clearer focus on the safety of the better-than-human technology called artificial general intelligence that both San Francisco firms aimed to build.—
Matt O'Brien,
Fortune,
13 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Previous observations of individual apes playing alone had raised the possibility that animals could engage in simulated play, study authors Amalia Bastos and Christopher Krupenye noted in the study, which was published Thursday in the journal Science.—
Amarachi Orie,
CNN Money,
9 Feb. 2026
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In 2019, Kasieczka and his collaborators announced the LHC Olympics 2020, a contest in which participants submitted algorithms to find anomalous events in three sets of (simulated) LHC data.—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
3 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Ersatz.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ersatz. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.
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