resource
[ree-sawrs, -sohrs, -zawrs, -zohrs, ri-sawrs, -sohrs, -zawrs, -zohrs]
- a source of supply, support, or aid, especially one that can be readily drawn upon when needed.
- resources, the collective wealth of a country or its means of producing wealth.
- Usually resources. money, or any property that can be converted into money; assets.
- Often resources. an available means afforded by the mind or one's personal capabilities: to have resource against loneliness.
- an action or measure to which one may have recourse in an emergency; expedient.
- capability in dealing with a situation or in meeting difficulties: a woman of resource.
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Origin of resource
Synonyms
See more synonyms for resource on Thesaurus.com1, 5. resort. 5. means, contrivance, shift. 6. inventiveness, adapability, ingenuity, cleverness.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for resource
Contemporary Examples
We fight over their ownership and control, as if reality were a resource as scarce as the water and oil in Mad Max.
She views music and pop culture as a resource for people to figure out where we are as a society.
For those in the resource world, every ton of junk that goes into a landfill represents wasted energy.
And he used that resource to its fullest 128 years ago this week.
And for that, it turned to the one resource it has in abundance—aside from seawater.
Historical Examples
She was apt not only to know what she talked about, but she was a woman of resource, unafraid of action.
The SpendersHarry Leon Wilson
"And have left her no other resource," said Harry, coloring still more.
MalboneThomas Wentworth Higginson
This was his only resource against the unpleasantness of the day.
Weighed and WantingGeorge MacDonald
Only the people, long-suffering and generous, remain as his resource.
The Call of the Twentieth CenturyDavid Starr Jordan
But they were told, that this was the resource of the Jews of old.
resource
- capability, ingenuity, and initiative; quick-wittednessa man of resource
- (often plural) a source of economic wealth, esp of a country (mineral, land, labour, etc) or business enterprise (capital, equipment, personnel, etc)
- a supply or source of aid or support; something resorted to in time of need
- a means of doing something; expedient
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Word Origin
C17: from Old French ressourse relief, from resourdre to rise again, from Latin resurgere, from re- + surgere to rise
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for resource
n.
1610s, "means of supplying a want or deficiency," from French resourse "a source, spring," noun use of fem. past participle of Old French resourdre "to rally, raise again," from Latin resurgere "rise again" (see resurgent). Resources "a country's wealth" first recorded 1779.
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v.
1975, from resource (n.). Related: Resourced; resourcing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper