pis aller
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of pis aller
literally: (at) the worst going
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Yet he is largely a pis aller for the would-be reader of Cassius Dio.
It is jolly good often, but only a pis aller in comparison to the real thing.
From The Price of Things by Elinor Glyn
To the present writer it seems a pis aller which high-minded married persons should avoid if they can practise self-restraint.
From Outspoken Essays by William Ralph Inge
It was true I might find a political stalwart in the smoking-room—but that was a last resort, a desperate and ignominious pis aller.
From The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad
As for their Sanscrit studies again, that was at bottom only a pis aller.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
