recourse

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   act of turning to for assistance

   have recourse to the courts

2. 2
   noun

   something or someone turned to for assistance or security

   My only recourse was the police.

3. 3
   noun

   The act of seeking assistance or advice.

   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

4. 4
   noun

   The use of (someone or something) as a source of help in a difficult situation.

   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.

5. 5
   noun

   A coursing back, or coursing again; renewed course; return; retreat; recurrence.

   [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.

6. 6
   noun

   Access; admittance.

   [...] 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.

7. 7
   verb

   To return; to recur.

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

8. 8
   verb

   To have recourse; to resort.

Etymology

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