pis aller

Unadapted borrowing from French pis-aller.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /piːzˈaleɪ/

pis aller

1. A last resort.
   • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, pages 274–275:

     Soh! she would secure me as a pis aller, I suppose, in case Mr Rashleigh Osbaldistone should not take compassion upon her!

   • 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 189:

     Love, in fact, having in this modern world-movement been denied, and its natural manifestations affected with a sense of guilt and of sin, has really languished and ceased to play its natural part in life; and a vast number of people - both men and women, finding themselves barred or derailed from the main object of existence, have turned their energies to 'business' or 'money-making' or 'social advancement' or something equally futile, as the only poor substitute and pis aller open to them.

   • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 411:

     To tell the truth the Army seems the likeliest pis aller – though I am not very militant.

   • 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 425:

     Mungo is on his feet, lurching with the boat, dipping into the bright tatters of his shirt for the smooth ivory grip of his secret weapon, his pis aller, the gleaming silver-plated pistol Johnson had pressed on him with a parting benediction.

• Palliser, Piersall, perillas