dernier

adj

1. (dated, not-comparable)Final, last.

   “Then as I'm a Chriſtian, I ſuſpect we have both been equally involv'd in the misfortune of a Miſtake. Sir, I am in the dernier Confuſion to avow, that tho my Daughter Conſtantia has been liable to ſeveral Addreſſes; yet ſhe never has had the Honour to be produc'd to his Grace.”

   “That thoſe laws of Ed[ward] 3 for Annual Parliaments are pro bono publico [for the public good], and of the greateſt concern to the Nation, beſides they are made concerning the higheſt Court of Judicature, of the Dernier Reſort, and which regulates and keeps all the reſt in order, needs not a proof to any reaſonable man.”

   “The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!”

   “[T]he attention of the Board in New-street, Spring-gardens, was in vain called to the petinacious obstinacy of these justices, until, wearied with official correspondence, and "having no reasonable expectation," they state, "that any steps would be taken by the committee of visiting justices to the remedy of the manifest defects," upon which they had animadverted, they inform us that they had recourse to the dernier ressort—an appeal to the Secretary of State […]”

   “In the autumn of 1849 Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, who were to spend some months in the East, again proposed that Miss [Florence] Nightingale should travel with them, and again the offer was gladly accepted. Her sister was delighted. […] The sister reported to her friends that "Flo had taken tea with the Bunsens to receive the dernier mot [last word] on Egyptology," and that she was going out "laden with learned books."”