Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act or an instance of turning to or making use of a person or thing for aid or in an effort to achieve something.
- noun One that is turned to or made use of for aid or security.
- noun Law The right of a creditor to demand payment from an endorser or guarantor when the primary debtor fails to pay.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To return; recur.
- To have recourse.
- noun Resort for help or protection, as when in difficulty or perplexity.
- noun Resort; customary visitation or communication.
- noun Access; admittance.
- noun Return; new attack; recurrence.
- noun Repeated course; frequent flowing.
- noun In Scots law, the right of an assignee or disponee under the warrandice of the transaction to recur on the vendor or cedent for relief in case of eviction or of defects inferring warrandice.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb obsolete To return; to recur.
- intransitive verb obsolete To have recourse; to resort.
- noun obsolete A coursing back, or coursing again, along the line of a previous coursing; renewed course; return; retreat; recurence.
- noun Recurrence in difficulty, perplexity, need, or the like; access or application for aid; resort.
- noun obsolete Access; admittance.
- noun (Commerce) words sometimes added to the indorsement of a negotiable instrument to protect the indorser from liability to the indorsee and subsequent holders. It is a restricted indorsement.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of seeking assistance or advice.
- verb obsolete To return; to recur.
- verb obsolete To have recourse; to resort.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun something or someone turned to for assistance or security
- noun act of turning to for assistance
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word recourse.
Examples
-
Non-recourse is the effective termination clause of the contract.
Matthew Yglesias » On So-Called “Irresponsible” Borrowers 2009
-
P.S. By "us" I mean individuals or small groups who are adversely affected by policies and whose recourse is extremely limited.
Preferring Ignorance, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
-
One recourse is to work for the election of representatives at all levels of government who know and follow The Constitution and Bill of Rights.
-
The recourse is that the House of Representatives should not count votes from the Electors that are for ineligible candidates for the Presidency.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Blatant Unconstitutionality Started Early 2010
-
Most of all, I hope this does not distract from the issue I was asked about -- the desperate, tragic decision by some young people who feel that their only recourse is to take their own lives because they are being bullied or harassed because they are gay, or because others believe they are gay.
Valerie Jarrett Apologizes For Referring To Dead Gay Teen's 'Lifestyle Choice' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010
-
Our only recourse is to set the same "trigger" to vote him out along with all the other politicians who are only working for the lobbyists and not the people they serve.
Sources: White House considers drafting health care bill 2009
-
Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people, our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs?
-
Most of all, I hope this does not distract from the issue I was asked about -- the desperate, tragic decision by some young people who feel that their only recourse is to take their own lives because they are being bullied or harassed because they are gay, or because others believe they are gay.
Valerie Jarrett is no Tony Perkins Jonathan Capehart 2010
-
Seems their only recourse is an attempt to belittle and it just does not work.
-
Most of all, I hope this does not distract from the issue I was asked about -- the desperate, tragic decision by some young people who feel that their only recourse is to take their own lives because they are being bullied or harassed because they are gay, or because others believe they are gay.
Valerie Jarrett Apologizes For Referring To Dead Gay Teen's 'Lifestyle Choice' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010
Nicoh commented on the word recourse
Before I discovered this awesome website my best recourse was Wikipedia.
May 4, 2012
shanvrolijk commented on the word recourse
" In the light of such new frameworks that are no more dependent on recourse to a numinous entity in order to sustain worldviews and moral imperatives, Iqbāl was left with little choice to critically engage with its foundations, as long as he wanted to sustain his conviction in the absolute inevitability of a religious grounding of all human pursuit."
Source: “I Pine for True Closeness”: Muḥammad Iqbāl’s Uneasy Relationship with Christianity, and the Islamic Social Ideal
January 22, 2018