coup
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /kuː/
ipa: /ku/
rhymes: -uː
homophone: coo
Forms: form: coups
Etymology: Reborrowed in modern times from modern French coup (“blow, strike”), from Old French coup, colp, from Late Latin colpus, from Latin colaphus. Doublet of cope and colpus. The same Old French word had been borrowed into Middle English as coupe, caupe (with different pronunciation).
Senses: examples: text: The conference was a major coup for Robarts, who received congratulations for his 'expert handling' of the 'risky venture.'
ref: 2000, P. E. Bryden, “The Ontario-Quebec Axis: Postwar Strategies in Intergovernmental Negotiations”, in Edgar-André Montigny, Anne Lorene Chambers, editors, Ontario Since Confederation: A Reader, page 399:
text: While the price was considered a coup for Morgan, enhancing his reputation on Wall Street, Carnegie had a different explanation for his selling price.
ref: 2004, Charles R. Geisst, Wall Street: A History, page 116:
text: "[…]It was quite a coup for Pullen Park to get it. It had been in storage for awhile,^([sic]) and several parks in other places wanted to purchase it."
ref: 2005, Laryce Henderson Rybka, Legacy of the Lamp, page 252:
text: Yet the capture of Di María, who was the man of the match when Real won a 10th Champions League in May, represents something a coup for United considering the club are not in Europe’s premier club competition and need to strengthen their squad after the team have let five points slip from the first two matches.
ref: 2014 August 26, Jamie Jackson, “Ángel di María says Manchester United were the ‘only club’ after Real”, in The Guardian:
text: The diplomatic messaging of RCEP may be just as important as the economics—a coup for China.
ref: 2020 November 15, Yen Nee Lee, ‘A coup for China’: Analysts react to the world’s largest trade deal that excludes the U.S., CNBC:
text: Just imagine if my predecessor came to this dinner this year. Now that would really have been a real coup if that occurred. [audience gasps] Little tough, huh?
ref: 2022 April 30, Joe Biden, 1:02 from the start, in President Biden complete remarks at 2022 White House Correspondents' Dinner (C-SPAN), Washington, D.C.: C-SPAN, archived from the original on 01 May 2022:
synonyms: triumph
glosses: A quick, brilliant, and highly successful act.
examples: text: Among the Blackfeet the capture of a shield, bow, gun, war bonnet, war shirt, or medicine pipe was deemed a coup.
ref: 1892, George Bird Grinnell, “The Blackfoot in War”, in Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 248:
text: Thus, for a horseman to ride over and knock down an enemy, who was on foot, was regarded among the Blackfeet as a coup, for the horseman might be shot at close quarters, or might receive a lance thrust.
ref: 2007, James Mooney, George Bird Grinnell, Edmund Nequatewa, Native American Ways: Four Paths to Enlightenment, page 316:
glosses: Of Native Americans, a blow against an enemy delivered in a way that demonstrates bravery.
examples: text: Military coups and the military regimes which follow from them are so much a feature of third world politics that their presence or absence in any given region might almost be taken as a rough and ready touchstone of third worldliness.
ref: 1985, Christopher S. Clapham, Third World Politics: An Introduction, page 137:
text: It was the military's discontent with what was happening in the country and in the military that led to the first military coup in January 1966. The First Republic was brought to an ignoble end and replaced with a military government.
ref: 2003, April A. Gordon, Nigeria's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook, page 130:
text: The coup was well-planned. Fuel was artificially held back so as to create shortages and dissatisfaction with Brotherhood rule. The old state-controlled unions mounted public sector strikes that further sabotaged the economy and annoyed people. Police-controlled thugs who had been used against the Tahrir Square demonstrations in 2011 came back into action.
ref: 2013 August 23, Jonathan Steele, “The west has little influence in Egypt”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 11, page 18:
synonyms: putsch
glosses: A coup d'état.
examples: text: Liz Truss’s government is in chaos after the chancellor refused to confirm he would bring forward his budget to calm the markets and the home secretary accused fellow MPs of a coup against the prime minister. […] Backbenchers also expressed outrage at [Suella] Braverman’s suggestion of a “coup” against Truss.
ref: 2022 October 4, “Truss government in chaos amid budget confusion and coup accusations”, in The Guardian:
glosses: A takeover of one group by another.
glosses: A single roll of the wheel at roulette, or a deal in rouge et noir.
topics: bridge
games
glosses: One of various named strategies employed by the declarer to win more tricks, such as the Bath coup.
Derived terms: word: anticoup
word: colonels' coup
word: count coup
word: countercoup
word: coupism
word: coupist
word: coupmaking
word: coup stick
word: coupstick
word: generals' coup
word: palace coup
word: postcoup
word: precoup
word: self-coup
word: soft coup
word: Vienna coup
Related terms: autocoup
autogolpe
coup d'arret
coup de force
coup de foudre
coup de grâce
coup de main
coup de savate
coup d'état
coup de théâtre
coup d'oeil
en coup de sabre