English Explanatory Dictionary

coup

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A quick, brilliant, and highly successful act.
  2. Of Native Americans, a blow against an enemy delivered in a way that demonstrates bravery.
  3. A coup d'état.
  4. A takeover of one group by another.
  5. A single roll of the wheel at roulette, or a deal in rouge et noir.
  6. One of various named strategies employed by the declarer to win more tricks, such as the Bath coup.
verb
  1. To execute a coup.
  2. To subject (a nation) to a coup d'état.
  3. To empty out, overturn, or tilt, such as from a cart or wheelbarrow.
verb
  1. To exchange, barter.

Pronunciation

/kuː/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-coup.wav /ku/

Word forms

coup coups couping couped

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).

Synonyms

triumph putsch

Related words

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 coup Turc en coup de sabre touché

Derived words

anticoup colonels' coup count coup countercoup coupism coupist coupmaking coup stick coupstick generals' coup palace coup postcoup precoup self-coup soft coup Vienna coup couper
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