pis-aller

The whole is an extravagant riot of second bests, a pandemonium of pis-aller.

G.K. Speaks - Wanted, An Unpractical Man 2007

He is useful to them in a hundred ways, never interferes with their schemes, and, if the worst comes to the worst, they can always fall back upon him as a _pis-aller_.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 Various

The public wondered, and thought that _Punch_ had taken the situation a little too seriously; but it was a _pis-aller_, and the best had been made of a shocking bad job.

The History of "Punch" M. H. Spielmann

With this sound ringing in his ears, and daily becoming more and more insufferable from monotony and increase, the sheep-man rides out in the morning among his Mexicans, and returns to camp at night aweary, with haply a couple of little ones abandoned by their mothers in his arms, to be brought up on that _pis-aller_ of infancy, -- and, alas! occasionally of age, -- the bottle.

Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 Various

Lest by some future D'Israeli this be written down among the traditional greennesses of learned men, let me say that he was our _pis-aller_, -- we finding ourselves within two hours of the Stockton boat, with nobody to help pack our mules or care for them and the horses.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 Various

"A forlorn pis-aller," she says, steadily, with a forced smile.

April's Lady A Novel Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

He did not at first promise amusement, but a rather malicious humour found much in him, owing to the circumstance that the poor fellow was acquainted with the negotiations touching the marriage first suggested for Victoria, and was fully aware that he himself was in his lady's eyes only a _pis-aller_.

The King's Mirror Anthony Hope 1898

Personally I am afraid that I only look upon games as a pis-aller.

From a College Window Arthur Christopher Benson 1893

'Nothing particular is true,' his manner said, 'and all action is a degrading _pis-aller_.

Robert Elsmere Humphry Ward 1885

To me at any rate the history of mankind is a huge _pis-aller_, just as our present society is; a prodigious wasteful experiment, from which a certain number of precious results have been extracted, but which is not now, nor ever has been at any other time, a final measure of all the possibilities of the time.

On Compromise John Morley 1880