resource, resort, recourse

1. The three words all have to do with finding help or support and are chiefly distinguished from one another by the typical phrase patterns in which they operate. These are given in the table below.

resource	a simple resource, at the end of one's resources, a person of many resources, to fall back on one's own resources
resort	as a last resort, in the last resort; (verb) to resort to, without resorting to
recourse	to have recourse to, without recourse to, one's usual recourse

2. In general, resource denotes what one adopts for help or support whereas recourse denotes a process or avenue of finding support. There is an area of possible confusion in the overlap between to resort to (especially in the past, to have resorted to) and to have recourse to:

More than 100 governments had resorted to torture or the maltreatment of prisoners—Keesings, 1990

Crazed individuals who wreak appalling acts of terror have recourse to the same self-justifying arguments—Times, 2006.

One normally resorts to things in extreme circumstances and has recourse to them more routinely.

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