recourse

English

Etymology

From Middle English recours (noun) and recoursen (verb), from Old French recours, from Latin recursus, past participle of recurrō.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: rĭkôsʹ, IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈkɔːs/

  • Audio (Southern England)

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• (General American) enPR: rēʹkôrs, IPA^(key): /ˈɹiːkɔɹs/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: rikōrsʹ, rēʹkōrs, IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈko(ː)ɹs/, /ˈɹiːko(ː)ɹs/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈkoəs/, /ˈɹiːkoəs/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)s

Noun

recourse (countable and uncountable, plural recourses)

1. The act of seeking assistance or advice.
   • 1678, Nathaniel Wanley, The Wonders of the Little World:

     Thus dyed this great Peer in the thirty sixth year of his age compleat, and three days over, in a time of great recourse unto him, and dependence upon him

   • 1669 June (first performance), John Dryden, Tyrannick Love, or, The Royal Martyr. […], London: […] H[enry] Herringman, […], published 1670, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 29:

     All other means have fail'd to move her heart; / Our laſt recourſe is, therefore, to your Art.

2. (uncountable, recourse to) The use of (someone or something) as a source of help in a difficult situation.
   • 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “Man’s Reason”, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June, →OCLC, page 151:

     Tarzan would have liked to subdue the ugly beast without recourse to knife or arrows. So much had his great strength and agility increased in the period following his maturity that he had come to believe that he might master the redoubtable Terkoz in a hand to hand fight were it not for the terrible advantage the anthropoid's huge fighting fangs gave him over the poorly armed Tarzan.

   • 1929, M. Barnard Eldershaw, A House is Built, chapter VIII, section ii:

     Nor were the wool prospects much better. The pastoral industry, which had weathered the severe depression of the early forties by recourse to boiling down the sheep for their tallow, and was now firmly re-established as the staple industry of the colony, was threatened once more with eclipse.

   • 1940 May, “The Why and the Wherefore: Running Powers”, in Railway Magazine, page 318:

     This was done, and in many cases still is done by the main-line railway groups, through the exercise of running powers, which on application to Parliament by the company using them have been granted for the express purpose of affording this access without the necessity for building independent tracks. In other cases, such running powers have been granted without recourse to Parliament, by voluntary agreement between the parties.

   • 1962 March, Brian Haresnape, “Design in 1961—a Retrospect”, in Modern Railways, page 197:

     Careful consideration of every aspect, from car-parking facilities, lay-out of circulating areas, heating and lighting, handling of G.P.O. traffic, signposting, litter facilities, train information, waiting rooms and sanitation, to materials and colour should persuade the most pessimistic individual that, given the will, our most out-dated, inadequate and inconvenient railway stations can be transformed without recourse to complete demolition.

3. (obsolete) A coursing back, or coursing again; renewed course; return; retreat; recurrence.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 29, page 88:

     [B]y the ſwift recourſe of fluſhing blood / Right plaine appeard, though ſhe it would diſſemble, / And fayned ſtill her former angry mood, / Thinking to hide the depth by troubling of the flood.

   • 1650, Thomas Browne, “Of the Canicular or Dog-daies”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 4th book, page 195:

     For Phyſick is either curative or preventive; Preventive we call that which by purging noxious humors, and the cauſes of diſeases, preventeth ſickneſs in the healthy, or the recourſe thereof in the valetudinary; [...]

4. (obsolete) Access; admittance.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 45, column 1:

     [...] Ile giue you a pottle of burn'd ſacke, to giue me recourſe to him, and tell him my name is Broome: onely for a ieſt.

Derived terms

• legal recourse
• nonrecourse
• recourseful
• recourseless
• without recourse

 

Related terms

• recur
• recursion
• recursive

Translations

act of seeking assistance or advice

• Dutch: toevlucht (nl) f or m
• Finnish: turvautuminen
• Swedish: tillflykt (sv) c

Verb

recourse (third-person singular simple present recourses, present participle recoursing, simple past and past participle recoursed)

1. (obsolete) To return; to recur.
   • 1563, John Foxe, “Martyrdom of Thomas Bilney”, in Actes and Monuments:

     […] the flame departing and recoursing thrice ere the wood took strength to be sharper to consume […]

2. (obsolete) To have recourse; to resort.
   • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, “The Historie of Irelande […]”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC:

     Recoursing deuoutlie to the onlie refuge of humane saluation

Synonyms

• (to recur): repeat; see also Thesaurus:repeat

Anagrams

• resource