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Emulate vs Ersatz - What's the difference?

emulate | ersatz |

As adjectives the difference between emulate and ersatz

is that emulate is striving to excel; ambitious; emulous while ersatz is made in imitation; artificial, especially of an inferior quality.

As a verb emulate

is to attempt to equal or be the same as.

As a noun ersatz is

something made in imitation; an effigy or substitute.

emulate

English

Alternative forms

* (archaic)

Verb

(emulat)
  • To attempt to equal or be the same as.
  • To copy or imitate, especially a person.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 1 , author=Saj Chowdhury , title=Wolverhampton 1 - 2 Newcastle , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=The Magpies are unbeaten and enjoying their best run since 1994, although few would have thought the class of 2011 would come close to emulating their ancestors.}}
  • (obsolete) To feel a rivalry with; to be jealous of, to envy.
  • * 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, p. 146:
    • But the councell then present emulating my successe, would not thinke it fit to spare me fortie men to be hazzarded in those unknowne regions [...].
  • (computing) of a program or device: to imitate another program or device

    • Related terms

    * emulation * emulator * emulous

    See also

    * mimic * copy * imitate * simulate

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) Striving to excel; ambitious; emulous.
  • * Shakespeare
    • A most emulate pride.
    ----

    ersatz

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Made in imitation; artificial, especially of an inferior quality.
    • Back then, we could only get ersatz coffee.

    Synonyms

    * artificial, faux, imitation, knock off

    Quotations

    * 1923 , Arthur Michael Samuel, The Mancroft Essays'', ''Pinchbeck'', page 164 (possibly published before in ''The Saturday Review in 1917–1921): *: In these days of “rolled” gold, electro-plate, and undetectable pearls, it is curious that almost the only honest Ersatz material known to the goldsmith's art should be utterly forgotten. * 1929 , "Zeppelining," Time , 16 Sep., *: Ersatzgas'', ''Ersatzpfennige . Ersatz has become a brave word in Germany. As a substantive it means War Reparations. As part of compounded words it means substitute. * 2001 , The New Yorker , 15 Oct, *: The avant-garde's opposite number, in Greenberg's scheme, is kitsch, "ersatz culture"—art for capitalism's new man (who turns out to be no different from Fascism's or Communism's new man). * 2003 , The New Yorker , 17 & 24 Feb, *: The NATO visitors watched an ersatz eighteenth-century dance (complete with powdered wigs and simulated copulation) that might have been considered obscene had it not been so amusing. * 2004 , The New Yorker , 31 May, *: The crowd wandered out to a huge party on the ersatz city blocks of the Paramount lot.

    Noun

    (ersatzes)
  • Something made in imitation; an effigy or substitute.
    • (en)

    Synonyms

    * imitation, knock off