As a shift; for want of a better; a dernier ressort; better than nothing.
“She contented herself with a pis-aller, and gave her hand … in six months to the son of the baronet’s steward.”—Sir W. Scott: Waverley, chap. v.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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