access or resort to a person or thing for help or protection:
to have recourse to the courts for justice.
2.
a person or thing resorted to for help or protection.
3.
the right to collect from a maker or endorser of a negotiable instrument. The endorser may add the words “without recourse” on the instrument, thereby transferring the instrument without assuming any liability.
Origin
1350-1400;Middle Englishrecours < Old French < Late Latinrecursus,Latin: return, retreat, noun use of past participle of recurrere to run back; see recur
Examples from the web for recourse
Sometimes the only recourse is daily combing and nit-picking, and this may take some time to eliminate an infestation.
All this can be seen close-up, without a blind, without recourse to binoculars.
Nevertheless, people throughout time have found what seemed to them good reason for recourse to alcohol.
It is used as a recourse for people who have not had success with medications.
His only recourse was to make the tubs at home bigger and better, especially bigger.
If it failed, the next recourse would be surgery, which the doctor dreaded because of its high risk of mortality.
If one side feels it cannot win but has no other recourse then an insurgency will occur.
Landowners might be left with little legal recourse.
They are the civil method of recourse if you have been harmed by a giant corporation.
The crew had a much clearer view and repeatedly voiced their concerns, but found no recourse.
British Dictionary definitions for recourse
recourse
/rɪˈkɔːs/
noun
1.
the act of resorting to a person, course of action, etc, in difficulty or danger (esp in the phrase have recourse to)
2.
a person, organization, or course of action that is turned to for help, protection, etc
3.
the right to demand payment, esp from the drawer or endorser of a bill of exchange or other negotiable instrument when the person accepting it fails to pay
4.
without recourse, a qualified endorsement on such a negotiable instrument, by which the endorser protects himself or herself from liability to subsequent holders
Word Origin
C14: from Old French recours, from Late Latin recursus a running back, from re- + currere to run
Word Origin and History for recourse
n.
late 14c., from Old French recours (13c.), from Latin recursus "a return, a retreat," literally "a running back, a going back," from stem of past participle of recurrere "run back, return" (see recur).