Resort

How to spell resort

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce resort

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does resort mean?

1. nounA place people travel to for relaxation, recreation, or a holiday.
2. verbTo turn to a course of action, especially a drastic or undesirable one, when other options have failed.
3. nounA strategy or source of help turned to in difficulty, often in the phrase 'last resort'.

Resort in a sentence

• noun

  The coastal resort was fully booked for the summer.

• verb

  The manager refused to resort to layoffs until every other option failed.

• noun

  Selling the house was a last resort for the struggling family.

• noun

  They spent a week at a ski resort in the mountains.

• verb

  If talks break down, the union may resort to industrial action.

• noun

  Calling the lawyer became their only resort after the dispute escalated.

Where does resort come from?

Language of origin: French

This word arrived in English in the 1300s from the Old French resortir, meaning 'to go out again' or 'to turn to for refuge'. It was built from the prefix re-, which carries the sense of 'again' or 'back', joined to sortir, meaning 'to go out' or 'to issue forth'. The original idea was of going somewhere repeatedly, so a place people went again and again, especially for help or relief, became a 'resort'. From that root grew two everyday strands: the verb sense of turning to something as a recourse (you 'resort to' a measure when other options fail) and the noun sense of a pleasant place people travel to for leisure. Note that despite sounding similar, it is unrelated to 'sort' meaning to arrange, which comes from Latin sors, sortis 'lot, fate'; the spelling stays simple, with a single s and no double consonant.

How the word is built

• re- (again, back)
• sort (from Old French sortir: to go out, issue)