coup de main
Americannoun
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coups de main
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of coup de main
Literally, “blow from the hand”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the ring, Pacquiao, an avatar of speed and power combined into unremitting attack, exemplifies the Napoleonic principle of coup de main, the bold, decisive strike.
From New York Times ● May 1, 2015
Said Army Major General Stanley McChrystal, a top Pentagon operations officer: "We are not expecting to drive into Baghdad suddenly and seize it in a coup de main."
From Time Magazine Archive
Now Robuchon has opened his first overtly Japanese restaurant, at the Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo, and it's exactly the chic coup de main his fans would expect.
From Time Magazine Archive
"This pass," he observed, "should also be attended to, lest the enemy by a coup de main should possess themselves of it before a sufficient force could be assembled to oppose them."
From The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools by Washington Irving
Having secured promise of aid from Henry of Lancaster, his cousin, and other barons, he executed a coup de main, and seized Mortimer in his chamber at midnight.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 5 English History by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
