resource
Pluralresources
Pluralresources
Formsresources, resourcing, resourced
- 1Anything drawn on to reach a goal, such as raw materials, staff, or time.
The mining company extracts natural resources from three sites in the region.
Time proved to be the scarcest resource during the product launch.
UsageMost often plural: natural resources, energy resources, or have the resources to + verb.
- 2An aid to achieving a goal, especially an information source for teachers and students, such as a book or piece of equipment.
The museum's website offers a downloadable resource for history teachers.
New teachers often trade classroom resources at the summer workshop.
UsageOften a resource for teachers or students, or resources on a subject.
- 3Hardware or software that is accessible to a computer, a network, or another connected device or program.
The server logs show which resources each application requested.
Each web page is treated as a resource with its own address on the network.
UsageOften plural when meaning system capacity, as in run out of resources or free up resources.
Note
Computing narrows the word to whatever a machine or process can reach and use: processor time, memory, storage, files, bandwidth, a shared peripheral. Programs request resources, contend for them and release them, while the operating system allocates and schedules them. When engineers speak of running out of resources, they mean these finite, managed capacities, not money or staff.
Less common meanings
- 4To supply with resources, such as funding, staff, or equipment.
The agency was never resourced adequately to handle so many cases.
Lawmakers must resource the inspection office before expanding its duties.
UsageMost often passive or as an adjective: be resourced, well-resourced, under-resourced, properly resourced.
Similarfund, finance, equip, staff, supply
Note
A verb made from the noun and at home in administrative writing. The identical spelling hides the "new supplier" verb, which is built from re- plus source. Only context tells the two apart.
- 5A person's inner ability to cope with trouble and find a way through difficult situations.
A diplomat of considerable resource, she defused the standoff within hours.
Stranded in a strange city with no money, she proved to be a woman of real resource and talked her way onto the last train home.
UsageUsually in a woman (or man) of resource, often with great or real, and no article before resource.
Similaringenuity, inventiveness, initiative, enterprise
Note
In thrown on one's own resources, the plural means having nothing to fall back on but oneself. That is Lilian's plight in W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918), where she is almost penniless and works at anything to pay the rent.
- 6To get something from a new or different source, or to find a new supplier for it.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Middle French ressource, from Old French resourse ("a source, spring"), which came from the Latin resurgō ("to rise again, spring up anew"). It can be seen as re- plus source.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Resource was borrowed from Middle French ressource, from Old French resourse, meaning a source or spring. en.wiktionary.org
- The French word ultimately derives from Latin resurgō through Old French resourdre. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin resurgō means to rise again or spring up anew. en.wiktionary.org
- The inherited word can be analysed as equivalent to re- plus source. en.wiktionary.org