Etymology

jer

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Today it means: Two historical Slavic vowels and their corresponding Cyrillic and Glagolitic letters; the vowels were short (possibly ultrashort), and possibly reduced. They were front jer (ь, Ⱏ) and back jer (ъ, Ⱐ). During the development of Slavic languages in certain positions they underwent weakening and were lost (weak jers), and elsewhere retained (strong jers). Full definition →

Russian ер
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The story

  1. Russian · borrowed fromер“ъ”
  2. English todayjer

Borrowed from Russian ер (jer, “ъ”) and ерь (jerʹ, “ь”). First attested in 1763.

Words from the same roots

Russianер all →

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.