Word.ws English Dictionary

pis aller

UK/piːzˈaleɪ/

pis aller noun: a last resort.

Noun

pis aller

  1. A last resort.
    • Soh! she would secure me as a pis aller, I suppose, in case Mr Rashleigh Osbaldistone should not take compassion upon her!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...
    • 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...1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 189

Origin of pis aller

Unadapted borrowing from French pis-aller.

Questions about pis aller

What does pis aller mean?
Pis aller means a last resort.
What part of speech is pis aller?
Pis aller is a noun.
How do you pronounce pis aller?
Pis aller is pronounced /piːzˈaleɪ/ (UK).

Words near pis aller in the dictionary

  1. Pirus
  2. Pirx Crater
  3. Pirzada
  4. Piræus
  5. pis
  6. pis aller
  7. pis-en-deux
  8. Pisa
  9. Pisabo
  10. pisaca
  11. pisacas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pis aller (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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