Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Coup   Listen
noun
Coup  n.  
1.
A sudden stroke delivered with promptness and force; used also in various ways to convey the idea of an unexpected, clever, and successful tactic or stratagem.
2.
A single roll of the wheel at roulette, or a deal at rouge et noir. (Cant)
3.
Among some tribes of North American Indians especially of the Great Plains, the act of striking or touching an enemy in warfare with the hand or at close quarters, as with a short stick, in such a manner as by custom to entitle the doer to count the deed an act of bravery; hence, any of various other deeds recognized by custom as acts of bravery or honor. "While the coup was primarily, and usually, a blow with something held in the hand, other acts in warfare which involved great danger to him who performed them were also reckoned coups by some tribes." "Among the Blackfeet the capture of a shield, bow, gun, war bonnet, war shirt, or medicine pipe was deemed a coup."
Coup de grace, the stroke of mercy with which an executioner ends by death the sufferings of the condemned; hence, a decisive, finishing stroke.
Coup de main (Mil.), a sudden and unexpected movement or attack.
Coup de soleil (Med.), a sunstroke. See Sunstroke.
Coup d'état (Politics), a sudden, decisive exercise of power whereby the existing government is subverted without the consent of the people; an unexpected measure of state, more or less violent; a stroke of policy.
Coup d'oeil.
(a)
A single view; a rapid glance of the eye; a comprehensive view of a scene; as much as can be seen at one view.
(b)
The general effect of a picture.
(c)
(Mil.) The faculty or the act of comprehending at a glance the weakness or strength of a military position, of a certain arrangement of troops, the most advantageous position for a battlefield, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Coup" Quotes from Famous Books



... there's enough in it to make it a financial coup, and I ask you, Prof, isn't a financial ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... curtain; goal, destination; limit, determination; expiration, expiry^, extinction, extermination; death &c 360; end of all things; finality; eschatology. break up, commencement de la fin, last stage, turning point; coup de grace, deathblow; knock-out-blow; sockdolager [U.S.]. V. end, close, finish, terminate, conclude, be all over; expire; die &c 360; come-, draw-to-a-close &c n.; have run its course; run out, pass away. bring ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... counting-house—humming a stave or two of 'Spanish Ladies', perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow himself the harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had gone by, of pointing out to some Rupert of the markets a coup worth a million to the depredator might have been made. 'Seems to me,' he would say almost wistfully, 'the Street is getting to be a mighty dull place since I quit.' By slow degrees this amiable weakness of the Colossus became known to the business ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... the French officials in Acadia foresaw aggressive action on the part of the English in consequence of the massacre at Haverhill. "Le coup que les Canadiens viennent de faire, ou Mars, plus feroce qu'en Europe, a donne carriere a sa rage, me fait apprehender une represaille."—De Goutin au ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... officers, upon receipt of which a German cruiser squadron was sent out and engaged the British vessels to its own discomfiture. But for the airman's vigilance and smartness there is no doubt that the British squadron would have accomplished a great coup. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... was for bestowing on Zuleika the half of his immensurable estates. The Grand Duchess appealed to the Tzar. Zuleika was conducted across the frontier, by an escort of love-sick Cossacks. On the Sunday before she left Madrid, a great bull-fight was held in her honour. Fifteen bulls received the coup-de-grace, and Alvarez, the matador of matadors, died in the arena with her name on his lips. He had tried to kill the last bull without taking his eyes off la divina senorita. A prettier compliment had never been paid her, and she was immensely pleased with it. For that ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... the rising of the Partisans, and their taking the Bastille, it was discovered that a plot was forming, at the head of which was the Count D'Artois, the king's youngest brother, for demolishing the National Assembly, seizing its members, and thereby crushing, by a coup de main, all hopes and prospects of forming a free government. For the sake of humanity, as well as freedom, it is well this plan did not succeed. Examples are not wanting to show how dreadfully vindictive and cruel are all old governments, when they are ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... mind work better. It always did. He began painstakingly to put things together. The red-headed man knew the routine here in every detail. He knew Sattell. That part was simple. Sattell had planned this multi-million-dollar coup, as a man in prison might plan his break. The stripped interior of the ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... saluting, "moi cannoniers vous implorent de leur donner l'honneur immortel en mettant feu au premier coup de cannon." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... submissive in the presence of their sovereign, are only the more ready to caricature him; with little good breeding, they called those answers they so much dreaded, Les coups de boutoir du Roi.—[The literal meaning of the phrase "coup de boutoir," is a thrust from ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... Mercier thought that if the Confederates were very much discouraged by their recent reverses, such language from the Minister of a great European Power might be a knock-down blow ('Coup d'assommoir' was the expression he used) to them. It might induce them to come to terms with the North. At all events it might lead to an Armistice, under which trade might be immediately resumed. He had (he told me) mentioned to Mr. Seward his notion of using this language, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... horror of facing a public scandal: my poor girl writes of the hatefulness of having to act the complacent—put on her accustomed self! She would have to go about, a mark for the talkers, and behave as if nothing were in the air-full of darts! Oh, that general whisper!—it makes a coup de massue—a gale to sink the bravest vessel: and a woman must preserve her smoothest front; chat, smile—or else!—Well, she shrinks from it. I should too. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... avoient faites, et des combats qu'ils avoient eu a soutenir, avant que la nation put se fixer ou elle est aujourd'hui. L'histoire de ces premiers Creeks, qui portoient alors le nom de Moskoquis, etoit conservee par des banderoles ou chapelets," etc.—Memoire ou Coup-d'Oeil Rapide sur mes different Voyages et mon Sejour dans la Nation Creck, Par le Gen. Milfort, pp. 48, 229. (Paris, An. ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... the true significance and the revolutionary character of the Hegelian philosophy (to which, as the conclusion of all progress since Kant, we must here limit ourselves) in that it, once and for all, gave the coup de grace to finiteness of results of human thought and action. Truth, which it is the province of philosophy to recognize, was no longer, according to Hegel, a collection of ready-made dogmatic statements, which once discovered must ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels

... this Spring to make very considerable Innovations in the Wastcoat, and have already begun with a Coup dessai upon the Sleeves, which ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... face of danger. But there was no cause for his agitation; the husband, as commander of the district where Nekhludoff's estates were situated, informed the latter of a special meeting of the local governing body, and asked him to be present without fail, and donner un coup d'epaule in the important measures to be submitted concerning the schools and roads, and that the reactionary party was expected to offer ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... was laying his plans looking to what he would call a coup. When he had gained a certain distance on the circling cow, so that he would have time to scramble over the fence, he hastened to put ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... Farrington the man was talking such drivel? Farrington, who only the week before had told him in high gratification that within the last month he had added a cool million to his ward's marriage portion. Farrington, who had, but two days ago, hinted mysteriously of a gigantic financial coup in the near future. And now all that fortune was lost, and the loser was lying at ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... cards were plastic, and should be good for a week or so of use before they showed wear. During that time, by playing it carefully, he should have his stake. Then, if the gaming tables here were as crudely run as an oldtimer he'd known on Earth had said, he could try a coup. ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey

... coup d'epee" is the expression employed by Montgeron; but the facts elsewhere reported by himself do not seem to bear out, in most cases, its accuracy. It was not usually a thrust of a sword's point, but only a pressure with the point of a sharp sword, often so strong, however, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... Jeff Bucknor told them he would run for the office of county attorney if they so wished it. At the same time he broke to them the news of his engagement. The veterans exchanged sly glances and laughed delightedly. Little did the young man dream that they had planned this political coup for the sole purpose of bringing to the county the person they considered the most suitable as a husband ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... reading—chiefly of books which Pryer and I think most likely to help; we find nothing comparable to the Jesuits. Pryer is a thorough gentleman, and an admirable man of business—no less observant of the things of this world, in fact, than of the things above; by a brilliant coup he has retrieved, or nearly so, a rather serious loss which threatened to delay indefinitely the execution of our great scheme. He and I daily gather fresh principles. I believe great things are before me, and am strong in the hope of being able by ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... of Germany's military debacle. The time was ripe for the coup-de-grace soon to be delivered by Americans co-operating with the Allies on ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... whom age and experience have formed. We keep their imagination prisoner, we deprive them of the sight of objects by which nature gives to the savage his first notions of all things, of all the sciences even. We have not the coup-d'oeil of nature. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... lines that came about his mouth. A brother in finance of some astuteness, who saw him scramble into his gharry, divined that with regard to a weighty matter in jute mill shares pending, Lindsay had decided upon a coup, and made his arrangements accordingly. He also went upon his way with a fresh impression of Lindsay's undeniable good looks, as sometimes in a coin new from the mint one is struck with the beauty of a die dulled by ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... are falling back slowly and in good order. The Austrians, feeling sure of a quick victory, will follow them too far. Then for our coup. First the artillery, then the infantry and cavalry, and let me tell you something, this Italian artillery fire is going to be one of the wonders of the war. Its effect will ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes

... that statement was too clear for Sinclair to deny it. He reviewed his situation with the swift calm of an old gambler. He had tried his desperate coup and had failed. There was nothing to do but accept the failure, or else make a still more desperate effort to rectify his position, risking everything on a ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... Lincoln tell him the State is loyal. An accidental promotion of Governor Latham to the Senate, places John G. Downey in the chair of California. If not a "coercionist," he is certainly no "rebel." The leaders of the Golden Circle feel that chivalry in the West is crushed, unless saved by a "coup de main." McDougall is a war senator. Latham, ruined by his prediction that California would go South or secede alone, sinks into political obscurity. The revolution, due to David Terry's bullet, brought ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... wayfarer's pocket is rewarded with the equivalent of days and nights of honest labor will surely be convinced thereafter of the superiority of theft over toil as a means of money-getting. Invariably the manufacturer of "made dollars," after his first coup, forsakes forever after the cold arithmetic of commerce for the rule of guess, dream, hope, and "I will," which constitutes the mathematics of high finance. Addicks' first "made dollars" came with such magical ease that there awoke in his slumbering substitute ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... the Ministry of Kiamil Pacha being ousted by the warlike faction of Enver Bey. He, one of the contrivers of the revolution of July 1908, had since been attached to the Turkish Embassy at Berlin; and his successful coup was a triumph of German influence. The Peace Conference at London broke up on February 1. In March the Greeks and Bulgars captured Janina and Adrianople respectively, while Scutari fell to the Montenegrins (April 22). ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... cards had been thrown to him by the half-breed as an experiment. He therefore played the gull to a nicety, betting gently upon his three kings; but when he stepped out boldly and bet the limit, it was not Toussaint but Kelley who held the higher hand, winning with three aces. Why the coup should be held off longer puzzled the scout, unless it was that Toussaint was carefully testing the edges of his marked cards to see if he controlled them to a certainty. So Cutler played on calmly. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... garrison would have hauled down their colors without firing a shot. This I am warranted to say by the declaration of numbers of their officers, who afterwards fell into our hands. But in place of an immediate 'coup de main', the courtly D'Estang sent a flag, very politely inviting the town to do him the extreme honor ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... noticed that a particular part of the wall was most favored with these ornamental appendages. Their position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of the room they came from. In fact, there was a nest of young mutineers just there, which must be broken up by a coup d'etat. This was easily effected by redistributing the seats and arranging the scholars according to classes, so that a mischievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious imponderable, should find himself between ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... present is one of those great periods of history to which posterity will often look back" with gratitude. [Footnote: Picavet, Les Ideologues, p. 203. Cabanis was born in 1757 and died in 1808.] He took an active part in the coup d'etat of the 18th of Brumaire (1799) which was to lead to the despotism of Napoleon. He imagined that it would terminate oppression, and was as enthusiastic for it as he and Condorcet had been for the Revolution ten years before. "You ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... pitiless ridicule of all the world —yet went on dreaming of coronations and splendid pageants as before; who lay a forgotten captive in the dungeons of Ham—and still schemed and planned and pondered over future glory and future power; President of France at last! a coup d'etat, and surrounded by applauding armies, welcomed by the thunders of cannon, he mounts a throne and waves before an astounded world the sceptre of a mighty empire! Who talks of the marvels of fiction? Who speaks of the wonders of romance? Who ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... exercised in his mind, thinking of what he had said. The splendid old crusader's motto, "Keep thy Faith," was scarcely the motto to suggest to the man of the Coup d'Etat, the man of Rome, the man of Mexico. The very bones of Victor Noir would twist in their coffin at the words; and the lungs of that other Victor, the one named Hugo, would swell and expand until the bellowing voice rang like a Jersey fog-siren over the channel, over the ocean, till ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... she had no political ambition, but for an unpredictive period she must be the beacon-light of the new Republic, no matter how successful the coup of the Socialists; until some one man (she knew of none) or some group of men became strong enough to control its destinies. The women must stand firm, a solid critical body led by herself, until the tragically disciplined soldiers who had survived these years of warfare had ceased to be ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... circumspectly, without loss of time. He leased a good location, wired the factory to ship at once, began a modest advertising campaign in the local papers, and as a business coup collared—at a fat salary and liberal commission—the best salesman on the staff of the concern doing the biggest motor-car business in town. Thompson had learned certain business lessons well. He had perceived long since that it was a cutthroat game when competition grew keen. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... you 'll call me an old imbecile. Imbecile if you please! I have refused magnificent offers because I believed that somehow or other—if wars and revolutions were needed to bring it about—we should have nothing less than that. There might be another coup d'etat somewhere, and another brilliant young sovereign looking out for a wife! At last, however," Mrs. Light proceeded with incomparable gravity, "since the overturning of the poor king of Naples and that charming queen, and the expulsion of all those dear little old-fashioned ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... case. The Secret Service men, who had been keeping an eye on him, determined to get that case, because they knew from the way the doctor always held on to it, that it must contain something important. A wise member of the Service was chosen to make the coup. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... turned my eyes to the Louvre.[43] What are the exhibitions of London, modern or ancient? What are Lord Stafford's, Grosvenor's, Angerstein's, &c., in comparison with this unrivalled gallery? Words cannot describe the coup d'oeil. Figure to yourself a magnificent room so long that you would be unable to recognise a person at the other extremity, so long that the perspective lines terminate in a point, covered with the finest works of art all ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... or old, dark or fair, ugly or beautiful, it was all one to him—and the fools who withheld him riches must be punished for their niggard hand. For a while a theft here and there, a cunning extortion of money upon the promise of good works, sufficed for his necessities, but still he hungered for a coup, and patiently he devised ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... Paris correspondent of The Times, in itself is serious enough as showing the dangers of letting the Adriatic settlement continue to be at the mercy of a coup de theatre or coup de d'etat, whichever one may like to call ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... fits included, are now obsolete. The men shave a line in the hair like a fillet round the skull, and what is left is coiffe au coup de vent. The head-dress is a cap, a straw hat, a billy cock, or a tall silk "chimney pot," the latter denoting a chief; he also sports in full dress a broad coat, ending in a loin cloth of satin stripe or some finer stuff, about six feet long by four and a ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... and beautiful. The strange irregular appearance of the town itself, the numerous coves and islets both above and below it, the towering forests and projecting rocks, combined with the infinite diversity of hill and dale on each side of the harbour, form altogether a coup d'oeil, of which it may be safely asserted that few towns ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... really approve. Mr. Gresham quite understood that. You can't have tests and qualifications, rotten boroughs and the divine right of kings, back again. But as the glorious institutions of the country are made to perish, one after the other, it is better that they should receive the coup de grace tenderly from loving hands than be roughly throttled by Radicals. Mr. Gresham would thank his stars that he could still preserve foxes down in his own country, instead of doing any of this dirty ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... of a different persuasion respecting some knotty controversial points. The arguments, however irresistible they may have been, Champlain observes, were not edifying either to the savages or to the French: "J'ay veu le ministre et nostre cure s'entre battre e coup de poing sur le differend de la religion. Je ne scay pas qui estait le plus vaillant et qui donnait le meilleur coup; mais je scay tres bien que le ministre se plaignoit quelque fois au Sieur de Mons (Calviniste, directeur de la compagnie) d'avoir este battu et vuoidoient en ceste ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... preparing for my grand coup, you understand; but I saw they were not quite ready for it, and so continued,— always in illustration of the general ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... vs. Madison was a political coup of the first magnitude, and by it he achieved half a dozen objects, some of the greatest importance. In the first place, while avoiding a direct collision with the executive power, he stigmatized his enemy Jefferson as a violator ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... celui-ci avait confie entierement a la mere et au foyer domestique la tache que Froebel remet, en grande partie, aux jardins d'enfants et a sa directrice. A l'egard des rapports de l'education domestique, telle qui elle est a l'heure qu'il est, on doit reconnaitre que Froebel avait un coup-d'oeil plus juste que Pestalozzi.—Histoire d'Education, FREDERICK DITTES, Redolfi's French translation, Paris, 1880, ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel

... surprise, which did not prevent her from accomplishing the change by rolling hastily to the side of the easel the stool, the box of colors, and even the picture by Prudhon, which the absent pupil was copying. After this coup d'etat the Right began to work in silence, but the Left ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac

... midst of them all stood the tall, athletic figure of the bold adventurer who had planned this impudent coup. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... That Frenchman is planning a big coup in the spring. You know they presented him with a house the other day, ready furnished, at Batoche, to keep him in the country. Oh, the half-breeds are very keen on this. And what is worse, I believe a lot of whites are in with them too. A chap named Jackson, and another named Scott, ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... repeats an instance of what the late W. C. Coup, of circus fame, once told him was one of the most amusing features of the show-business; the faking in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... guide him weel, sir, for he's aye been short in the wind since—ahem—Lord be gude to me! (in a low voice), I was gaun to come out wi'—since I rode whip and spur to fetch the Chevalier to redd Mr. Wauverley and Vich lan Vohr; and an uncanny coup I gat for my pains. Lord forgie your honour! I might hae broken my neck; but troth it was in a venture, mae ways nor ane; but this maks amends for a'. Lady Wauverley! ten thousand a year! ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... began to bethink me how I was to get enough papers to make the grand coup I intended. I had very little cash, and, I feared, still less credit. I went to the superintendent of the delivery department, and preferred a modest request for one thousand copies of the Free Press on ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... behind the banker, leaning over his shoulder and watching him win an enormous coup.) Ah, ha! You see, Monsieur, I bring ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch

... is the subject of common historical remark. M. Wallon insists upon the circumstance that, after her capture at Compiegne, no attempts were made by the French Court to ransom her or to liberate her by a bold coup de main. And when, at Rouen, she appealed in the name of the Church to the Pope to grant her a fair trial, not a single letter was written by the Archbishop of Rheims, High Chancellor of France, to his suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, demanding cognizance of the proceedings. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... says I maun Gae fa' upo' anither plan Than garrin lasses coup the cran, Clean heels ower body, An' sairly thole their ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... would not suffer them to fire and retired with them up the river, and "upon their return to Oauckpack (their settlement about two leagues above St. Anns) Pere Germain, their priest, expecting, as he termed it, 'Quelque coup de Trahison' from them, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... confusedly strenuous. There was always a slight and ineffectual struggle at the end on the part of Margaret to anticipate Altiora's overpowering tendency to a rally and the establishment of some entirely unjustifiable conclusion by a COUP-DE-MAIN. When, however, Altiora was absent, the quieter influence of the Cramptons prevailed; temperance and information for its own sake prevailed excessively over dinner and the play of thought.... Good Lord! ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... To-night she had confident hopes of the doctor's calling; she had even resolved upon a coup. "Oh no, I shall not be lonesome," she replied. "Norah ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... all old friends here. We want to speak to you plainly. We three have had a try, as you know—Merries, Dickinson and myself—to make the coup of our lives. We failed, and ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the countries of the West, in Russia the ruling classes, the gentry and the capitalists, clearly failed in the psychological test at the critical time. This failure is amply attested by the manner in which they submitted practically without a fight after the Bolshevist coup d'etat. ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... he proclaims his "Rouge perd," or "Couleur gagne." People are too genteel at Hombourg-von-der-Hohe to scream, to yell, to fall into fainting fits, or go into convulsions, because they have lost four or five thousand francs or so in a single coup. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... construction de deux batteries sur l'ile qui avoisine Ismael: le premier, de bombarder la place, d'en abattre les principaux edifices avec du canon de quarante-huit, effet d'autant plus probable, que la ville etant batie en amphitheatre, presque aucun coup ne serait perdu."—Hist. de ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... Marianne was sufficiently audacious to have brought about this coup de theatre? No, there was some error. The stupid zeal of some subordinate officer was manifested in this outrage. Some cowardly charge had perhaps been made against him at the prefecture. Every man who crosses a street ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... gage de nos amours, Tu m'appartieus, nos coeurs sont unis pour toujours! Ah comprends-tu, dis moi, cette joie ternelle Des coeurs silencieux? Vivants, n'tre qu'une me, et du mme coup d'aile Nous lancer aux cieux! Laisse, laisse ma flamme Verser en toi le jour! Laisse clore ton me Aux rayons ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach

... was divided by a door in the middle. There were open coup82s and side seats which became plank beds when necessary. We slept in three tiers on the bare boards. I had a very decent place on the second tier, and, by a bit of good luck, the topmost bench over ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... world, whereas a changed heart was no one's deadly dull affair but its owner's. The merest breath of pity even stole over him for the Sabathier who after all had dared and had needed, perhaps, nothing like so arrogant and merciless a coup de grace to realise that he ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... impulsion of essentially modern origin, which sets the lower classes marching through the social system. And thus the dramas of their individual lives recount the story of the Second Empire, from the ambuscade of the Coup d'Etat to the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... and I will answer to the best of my stammering ability. Do not press me much on the subject of the 'Crystal Palace.' I went there five times, and certainly saw some interesting things, and the 'coup d'oeil' is striking and bewildering enough; but I never was able to get any raptures on the subject, and each renewed visit was made under coercion rather than my own free will. It is an excessively bustling place; and, after all, its wonders appeal too exclusively to the eye, and rarely touch ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... his jaud o' a beast on the nose with my hat, and scaur the creature, and she swarved aside, and the king, that sits na mickle better than a draff-pock on the saddle, was like to have gotten a clean coup, and that might have cost my craig a raxing-and he flung down the paper amang the beast's feet, and cried, 'Away wi' the fause loon that brought it!' And they grippit me, and cried treason; and I thought of the Ruthvens that were dirked in their ain house, for, it may be, as small a forfeit. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... this campaign they saw service with the British forces on the continent, as told in "The Boy Allies on the Firing Line." In this campaign they had been instrumental in foiling a well-planned German coup, which would have resulted in a severe blow to the British had ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... is engaged to his cousin, all the world knows it: not a bad coup of Lady Rosherville's, that. I should say, that the young man at his father's death, and old Mr. Foker's life's devilish bad: you know he had a fit, at Arthur's, last year: I should say, that young Foker won't have less than fourteen thousand ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... gained by M. Paul in the first minute of the struggle; long and carefully he had practiced this coup with a wrestling professional. It never failed, it could not fail, and, in savage triumph, he prolonged his victory, slowly increasing the pressure, slowly as he felt the tendons stretching, the bones cracking in this helpless right arm. ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... far. She was on familiar terms with an English earl and two dukes; she had entertained an emperor aboard her yacht; in New York and Newport there were but two women to dispute her claims as social dictator, and one of these, through a railroad coup of her husband's, would soon be forced to ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... without taking too large a place on the political stage, the Duc de Morny's popularity and peculiar position enabled him to be the go-between in the compromise that followed. As early as 1849 he was reported to have said to a friend: "Quand je coup se fera je vous en previens, c'est moi qui le ferai."* Another of his mots has often been quoted** and is most characteristic of the man: "S'il y a un coup de balai, je tacherai d'etre du cote ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... given us by contemporaries so vivid and precious. And St. Simon, one of the great masters of the picturesque, lets us into the secret of his art when he tells us how, in that wonderful scene of the death of Monseigneur, he saw "du premier coup d'oeil vivement porte, tout ce qui leur echappoit et tout ce qui les accableroit." It is the gift of producing this reality that almost makes us blush, as if we had been caught peeping through a keyhole, and had surprised secrets to which we had ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... appeared-the lanterns of the coup. "Pierre!" cried Michel in the darkness, "Pierre!" But he felt that his feeble voice would not reach the coachman, who was doubtless asleep on his box. Once more he gathered together his strength, called again, and advanced a little, ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... coup d'oeil, as the sun slid into the position described, impressed me very much as I have been impressed, when a boy, by the concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical spectacle or melodrama. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... extracted the items of uniform one by one, unfolded them, and held them up for inspection. The king regarded each garment attentively and somewhat wonderingly as I held it up, but did not appear to be very profoundly impressed; and I began to fear that my great coup was about to miss fire. When, however, I came to the sword, drew it from its scabbard, flourished the glittering blade round my head, and made several cuts and points at an imaginary enemy, His Majesty sat upright in his chair and began to manifest ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... business - life - this great city, Paris - Paris after dark - its lights, its gardens, its odd corners. Aha!' he cried, 'to be young again! The heart is young, but the heels are leaden. A poor, mean business, to grow old! Nothing remains but the COUP D'OEIL, the contemplative man's enjoyment, Mr. - ,' and he ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... money with which to take advantage of the chances that he thought lay so invitingly about. Within a year he had made much progress. From a woman on Wabash Avenue he got six thousand dollars, and he planned and executed a coup that gave him the use of twenty thousand dollars that had come as a legacy to his friend, the medical student, who lived at the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... Monday, May 11.—For a while PRIME MINISTER'S protest against inordinate questioning, his announcement of determination not to take part in further shorter catechism more or less distantly related to the "plot" and the "coup," had wholesome effect. As he stated, since the plot was discovered he had made seven hundred replies to friendly inquiries. A Member below Gangway to his right added the seven hundred and first. Wanted to know whether it is true that the argumentative ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various

... eleventh point," exclaimed Joseph Speckbacher, with flashing eyes. "I intend to take part in carrying out this point of the programme. It is, to take the fortress of Kufstein on the frontier by a nocturnal coup de main. Field-Marshal Jellachich will move several companies of riflemen as close up to the fortress as possible, and Jacob Sieberer and Joseph Speckbacher, who will beforehand enlist assistants in the town and spy out every thing, will join ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... this knowledge, as well as the fear of the Pan-Serb movement, prompted the Austrian foreign minister to take steps towards the definitive regularization of his country's position in Bosnia and Hercegovina—provinces whose suzerain was still the Sultan of Turkey. The effect of the Young Turk coup in the Balkan States was as any one who visited them at that time can testify, both pathetic and intensely humorous. The permanent chaos of the Turkish empire, and the process of watching for years its gradual ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... The child was brought up in our life; I figured on this coup for years, and finally when all was ready, we came back east again. I had a plan, but I wasn't quite sure it would work until I could see the two girls together. After that it was like taking candy from a kid. Hell, you ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... propagandists in the country. It was as a result of this deal that Dr. Albert sent Dr. Schweitzer a memorable letter in which he praises his "breadth of highmindedness," and compares his work with "a military coup accomplished by an army leader in destroying three railroad trains of forty cars containing four and a half million pounds ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... others, with axes, spades, and other implements, threw up earth, cut down trees, hastily labouring to establish such a defensive cover in the rear of the second barricade as might enable them to retain possession of it, in case the Castle was not carried by this coup-de-main. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... riding in a motor-car was greatest of all. He too was very proud of this last coup. He saw Ursula kindle and flare up to the romance of the situation. She raised her head like a young ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... impudent, laughing face caught their fancy yet again, and she trotted down from the Arc de Triomphe between two rippling little streams of comment and admiration, with, "Comme elle est belle!" "Quelle aplomb!" "Matin, quelle chic!" "Elle est forte gentille!" "C'est le coup de grace!" "Le chapeau! le chapeau!" "La belle Pearl! la belle Pearl!" reaching her distinctly at ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... as we watched the carriage swing and rock over the points. "There are limits, you see, to our friend's intelligence. It would have been a coup-de-maitre had he deduced what I ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... at Verdun has not yet been delivered. After the failure of the Allies to break through last year, the German higher command issued a paper, which has been printed in American newspapers, advocating "nibbling" tactics, instead of attempts to carry a strongly fortified line by a coup de main. The Germans have buoyed up their hopes by assuring each other that their troops have been making a slow but methodical progress toward the "fortress," according to program. But even if we grant ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... It was worn by a huge Prussian officer, who, together with his staff, was surprised and captured during the operations of March 1st, 1916; a delightful little coup. I believe I told you that Sergeant Duveen had been degraded, but ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... shattering the bone, so that he was but in poor fighting trim; and I had time to get back to the gray—who stood snorting and panting, up to his knees in snow and rubbish, but without offering to stir—to draw my second pistol, and to give Isegrin—as the Germans call him—the coup de grace, before he could attain the friendly shelter of the dingle, to which with all due speed he was retreating. By this time all our comrades had assembled. Loud was the glee—boisterous the applause, which fell especially to me, who had performed with my own hand the glorious ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... not get much change out of it. The mountain region has invariably either been in possession of the conquerors at the start, or else it has been acquired by deliberate, protracted process during the course of a lengthy struggle, before the dramatic coup has been delivered by which the levels have been won. The wide belt of highlands extending from Switzerland to Croatia remained in the enemy's hands up to the time of the final collapse of the Dual Monarchy subsequent to the rout of the Emperor Francis' legions on the Piave. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... forward, crossing the Lys as well as the Scheldt, and attacking the allies as soon as they met them. Vendome, on the other hand, was of opinion that the army which was now collected near Ghent had better advance against Oudenarde, which might be carried by a coup de main before Marlborough could come to its assistance, which he might be some days in doing, seeing that he was in command of a mixed force, composed of Dutch, Danes, Hanoverians, Prussians, and ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... the means of spoiling the long-prepared and much-hoped for coup on which the robbers had set their highest hopes, as not a few men and women assisted me with information, aided me in other ways and protected me afterwards, I dare not name any names for fear that some survivor ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... you depart from the ordinary established rules of play, with certain reasons for each special case. Do not hesitate when attempting a coup. Consider what the play of your adversaries means, as well ...
— The Laws of Euchre - As adopted by the Somerset Club of Boston, March 1, 1888 • H. C. Leeds

... the Senate or Wuthisapha (200 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve six-year terms) and the House of Representatives or Sapha Phuthaen Ratsadon (500 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms); after coup in September 2006, coup leaders appointed an interim National Assembly with 250 members to act as Senate and House of Representatives elections: Senate - last held 19 April 2006; House of Representatives - last valid election held 6 February 2005; ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... as dramatic a coup as the Emperor's visit to Tangier and caused as much alarm. The fact is that the march of French troops to Fez, which had taken place a few months before, convinced the Emperor and his Government that France, relying on the support of her Entente friend ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... come ever so early. Then Honeyman was spoilt, and gave his sermons over and over again. People got sick of seeing the old humbug cry, the old crocodile! Then we tried the musical dodge. F. B. came forward, sir, there. That was a coup: I did it, sir. Bellew wouldn't have sung for any man but me—and for two-and-twenty months I kept him as sober as Father Mathew. Then Honeyman didn't pay him: there was a row in the sacred building, and Bellew retired. Then Sherrick must meddle in it. And ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the news I had to give to England. It was a great coup from the journalistic point of view, but I made up my three columns with a heavy heart, and the congratulations of my editor only sickened me. I had some luck, but I should never have become ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... day when Casey and Gavegan had slipped the handcuffs upon him. To laugh, to dance, to plan and direct clever coups, to spend the proceeds gayly and lavishly—to challenge the police with another daring coup: that had been life to him, a ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... days in September, while the illustrious General-in-Chief was meditating concluding the war by the assault of the city of Mexico, that Colonel Le Noir also resolved to bring his own private feud to an end, and ruin his enemy by a coup-de-diable. ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... the signal. One would have thought a very few blows would have finished so frail a being, but he seemed as hard to kill as the venomous reptiles which must be crushed and cut to pieces before life is extinct, and the coup de grace was found necessary. The executioner uncovered his head and showed the confessor that the eyes were closed and that the heart had ceased to beat. The body was then removed from the cross, the hands and feet fastened together, and it was ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... anything which she had not mastered. For example, she never played whist, because she had no memory, no finesse, and because she played games of chance so much better. She could never settle herself down to a multitude of details, but she could plan and execute a coup of such brilliancy that it would make your hair stand on end. Such was Cary Farquhar, and her most successful coup was the way she compelled me to see Flora Forsyth ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... la chass', A la chass' aux hannetons; Quand il fut sur la montagn', Il partit un coup d'canon. Et ti, &c. ...
— The Baby's Bouquet - A Fresh Bunch of Rhymes and Tunes • Walter Crane

... wishes of whose life had been to establish his descent from this very printer, Samuel Green. Two copies within the same covers, of a tract long sought and of which only a single example had come to light in two centuries and a half—was not that alone something of a bibliographical coup? ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... By this coup Vanderbilt about doubled his previous wealth. Scarcely had the mercantile interests recovered from their utter bewilderment at being routed than Vanderbilt, flushed with triumph, swept more railroads into ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... fenetre sur cette reflexion, quand j'apercois tout a coup, dans l'espace lumineux qui s'etend a droite, l'ombre de deux oreilles qui se dressent, puis une griffe qui s'avance, puis la tete d'un chat tigre qui se montre a l'angle de la gouttiere. Le drole etait la en embuscade, esperant que les ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... since I don't command. What would be the use? It would only irritate her and drive her to some coup de tete. She is very clever, like her mother; she would waste no time about it. As a child—when I was happy, or supposed I was—she studied drawing and painting with first-class professors, and they assured me she had a talent. I was delighted ...
— The American • Henry James

... strength, the charm of the aristocracy lies in its antiquity, the only thing I could not create." It must be confessed that from an old Republican general, for the man who had sent Augereau to execute the coup d'etat of the 18th Fructidor, and who the 13th Vendemiaire, from the steps of the Church of Saint Roch had crushed the Paris conservatives, this was a very aristocratic way of talking, reminding one of the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... good-nature, but still he might cut your throat on an occasion. There is a strange medley of ferocity and bonhommie about the animal. I shall put him among the boarders; for we shall not be at blows a minute before his impatience will be for carrying every thing by a coup-de-main." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... positions were about equally tenable. Abelard had hitherto rested quietly on the defensive, but William's last thrust obliged him to strike in his turn, and he drew himself up for what, five hundred years later, was called the "Coup de Jarnac":— ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... personal happiness, to exercise control over one's words as well as acts: for there are words that strike even harder than blows; and men may "speak daggers," though they use none. "UN COUP DE LANGUE," says the French proverb, "EST PIRE QU'UN COUP DE LANCE." The stinging repartee that rises to the lips, and which, if uttered, might cover an adversary with confusion, how difficult it sometimes is to resist saying it! "Heaven ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... drawn to an article by H.G. Wells, published by THE NEW YORK TIMES and by CURRENT HISTORY in its March number which proposed that Holland give Germany the coup de grace, suddenly attack Aix and Cologne, cut off Germany's line of supplies, and thereby help win the war for the cause of justice. I am not writing this answer in any official capacity, but I have reason to believe that I write what most of my ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... mortified by the result of the encounter, that he resolutely refused to have his wounds dressed. He tore off the bandages which the surgeons applied, and expired two days afterwards. Ever since that time, any sly and unforeseen attack has been called by the French a coup de Jarnac. Henry was so grieved at the loss of his favourite, that he made the solemn oath already alluded to, that he would never again, so long as he lived, permit a due]. Some writers have asserted, and among others, Mezeraie, that he issued a royal edict forbidding them. This ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... McMahon, who had escorted a train of packhorses from Fort Greenville on the day before, and who were now about to return. The Indians were, according to some authorities, under the command of the Bear chief, an Ottawa; others assign their leadership to the Little Turtle. That they had planned a coup de main and a sudden re-capture of the position is certain. Their army consisted of about fifteen hundred men; they had advanced in seventeen columns, with a wide and extended front, and their encampments were perfectly square and ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... highly valued for ship-building, and the canal was lined with shipyards, most of which belonged to the prince. The so-called republic had been established before Joro was born, but the reigning family of Hanlon had always been richly endowed with astuteness. Deprived of their feudal holdings by a coup of state, they had won back nearly all they had lost in the fields of finance and trade. Joro was a monarchist for sentimental reasons, not for the profits that might ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... extremely generous, Mr. Zorn," Magnan said. "The post you'll get will pay you very well indeed. As against the certain failure of your planned coup, the choice ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer

... the COUP DE GRACE. Otto had now to comfort and compose her as he could, and before many words, the money was accepted. Between the woman and the weak man such was the inevitable end. Madame von Rosen instantly composed her ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... population of Paris could have done to resist the insurrection. "Gather round your chiefs," says the proclamation. This is more easily said than done, when we do not know what has become of them. The division caused in the National Guard by the Coup d'Etat of the Central Committee had for its consequence the disorganisation of all command. Who was to distinguish, and where was one to find the officers that had remained faithful to ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... upon the end of the trip. Jerry longed to be rid of his unwelcome responsibility, and Isabelle was interested because she had arranged a coup for the moment. ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... "Vite! un coup d'oeil au miroir, Le dernier.—J'ai l'assurance Qu'on va m'adorer ce soir Chez l'ambassadeur ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... pour m'assurer des invalides et donner a ma vieillesse un repos et un abri que mon labeur n'a pas voulu conquerir au prix de mon honnetete. [Footnote: My father had been offered a very important post in the government of Napoleon III., on condition of accepting his policy, after the Coup d'Etat.] Je vous vois venir et j'ai beau etre un ane en agriculture, tout ce qui reussira me sera attribue; mon incapacite sera couverte d'un manteau de profonde habilete et vous me persuaderez que, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... who answered: "She is of course the lady of his love—a lady doubtless of high social position in Boston. There was a book about something like that once. He is just waiting to make one more grand coup, rob the bank or something and then the world will be startled by the news of their elopement. They will go and live somewhere luxuriously in the south Pacific, and travellers will bring home strange stories of their ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller

... coup d'tat of 1851, a Committee of Inquiry, composed of the most experienced and intelligent officers and distinguished legislators, had visited all departments of the navy, and made the most careful investigations into every branch of the service. Upon the evidence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... time the generals were preparing a final assault,—what the Marquis of Clermont-Tonnerre, in 1822, called the "Coup de Collier," and what, in 1789, the Prince of Lambese had called the "Coup de Bas." Throughout all Paris there was now only this point which offered any resistance. This knot of barricade, this labyrinth of streets, embattled like a redoubt, was the last citadel of ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... two more signatures and will then be complete,' said the upholder of Don Carlos. 'We shall then make our "coup," but we cannot move while Conyngham remains in Spain. It would never do for me to—well, to ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... Raleigh to Guiana in 1595 and again in 1617 belong rather to the history of exploration and colonization. Clifford, "courtier, gambler and buccaneer," having run through a great part of his very considerable fortune, had seized the opportunity offered him by the plunder of the Spanish colonies to re-coup himself; and during a period of twelve years, from 1586 to 1598, almost every year fitted out, and often himself commanded, an expedition against the Spaniards. In his last and most ambitious effort, in 1598, he equipped twenty vessels entirely at his own cost, sailed from Plymouth in ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... of the Republic. He voted for the election of Prince Louis Napoleon as its president. This action brought him much vituperation and ridicule from former political friends. But whatever may have been the motive that inspired it, it certainly did not help him at the time of the coup-d'etat of 1851; he was arrested, imprisoned in Mazas, and banished. Next year, however, he was allowed to return from Switzerland to France. For eight years he was occupied with his "History of the Consulate and Empire." ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... that Lord Hood will not attempt a Scrutiny. One of Ld. Hood's votes was discovered to be a carrot-scraper in St. James's Market who sleeps in a little Kennel about the Size of a Hen Coup. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... them. Your sister has made it all clear," he said. "I know the party—they've been engineering various shady deals in estate and produce, and now, when Winnipeg is getting uncomfortably warm, this is evidently a last coup before they light out across the boundary. The dark man was a clerk in the stock trade—turned out for embezzlement—once, you see. Still, they can't sell until to-morrow, and we might get the night train. No chance of trade hereabout, you say; then, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... which it formed the principal feature, the boldness of the conception, and the secrecy and promptitude with which so extensive an operation was effected, than by the physical difficulties that were overcome. In the latter particular, the passage of St. Bernard, as this celebrated coup-de-main is usually called, has frequently been outdone in our own wilds; for armies have often traversed regions of broad streams, broken mountains, and uninterrupted forests, for weeks at a time, in which the mere bodily labor of any given number of days would be found to be greater than that ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... At first sight "Coup d'oeil impartial sur l'Ancienne Magistrature" may seem to give even more promise of November than of May. But there is action here, and it really has something to do with the story. Also, the subsequent ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... how powerless Hamilton was to protect her. The glamour of that first year when nothing mattered was gone for ever. She had two children, one of them uncommon, and they were to encounter life without name or property. True, Levine might die, or Hamilton make some brilliant coup, but she felt little of the buoyancy of hope as they left the cane-fields and drove among the dark ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... respect the risky experiment, the theatrical coup, if you like to call it so, seemed to have failed. The deception could not be kept up much longer; the explanation would bring about a very embarrassing and even grave situation. The man who had eaten the paper would be furious. The fellows ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... the village, and swooped upon it simultaneously with an attack from the sea. The villagers scattered in all directions, but the ring-leaders were captured, together with a large number of rifles and ammunition. The coup reflects the greatest credit on this able ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... side it rose up, and rolled over, away from him, as the water is pushed away and swells out on either side before a duck that is swimming. My friend was very brave, and he said to me, "I am going to shoot that bull, and count a coup on him"; and he ran up close to the bull, and shot his blunt-headed arrow against him, and then turned off. The bull tried hard to go faster, but the snow was too deep; and when I saw that he could not move, I, too, ran up close to him, and shot my arrow at him, and the arrow bounded ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell

... led her to being sent abroad to a military hospital. She inspired confidence, not because she had initiative, but because one knew she would do exactly as she was told, which is, in itself, a great quality. At Boulogne she made the acquaintance at once of Aylmer, and of the coup de foudre. She worshipped him at first sight. So she thought herself fortunate when she was allowed to come back to London with him. Under orders she continued her assiduous attention. Everyone said she ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... and got out at the next station? You know that this circumstance occurred in France a few months since. If we have travelled in France this autumn we may have met the ingenious gentleman who perpetrated this daring and successful coup. We may have found him a well-informed and agreeable man. I have been acquainted with two or three gentlemen who have been discovered after—after the performance of illegal actions. What? That agreeable rattling fellow we met was the celebrated Mr. John Sheppard? Was that amiable ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... "The latest coup at Homburg has been made by a cantatrice whose praises all Germany are now ringing. Mademoiselle Klosking, successor and rival of Alboni, went to the Kursaal, pour passer le temps; and she passed it so well ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... I'm sure he won't. Things always do come right. Oh, what a coup d'etat mine was after all! Things always do come right. You, that were born to it! Didn't old Tripp say how they had had the bells rung for you? I should like to set ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... dictatorship has always followed anarchy. It followed it after the first Revolution, when Bonaparte was acclaimed, and again when, despite opposition, four successive plebiscites raised Louis Napoleon to the head of the republic, ratified his coup d'etat, re-established the Empire, and in 1870, before the war, approved ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... Manator. Every trick, every subterfuge, known to the art of fence these men employed. Time and again each scored a point and brought blood to his opponent's copper hide until both were red with gore; but neither seemed able to administer the coup de grace. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... bowels." I told him of another friend who suffered grievously with the gout. "He will live a vast many years for all that," replied he, "and then what signifies how much he suffers! But he will die at last, poor fellow; there's the misery; gout seldom takes the fort by a coup-de-main, but turning the siege into a blockade, obliges ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... unquestionably the above-mentioned are the means by which the African may be manumitted, and his condition improved. The wisest laws operate but slowly upon a rude and fierce people, therefore the measures of reformation are not to be successfully performed by a coup-de-main, nor are the hereditary customs of Africa to be erased by the inflammatory declamations of enthusiasm, but by a liberal policy and the ascendency of the polished arts of society. Commerce, the chief means of assembling, and agriculture of assimilating, ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance." He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-maitres," and "tours-de-force," all testifying to the ardent ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... a country of long-standing ties with the U.S. and the site of considerable U.S. investment and facilities. This past April a coup replaced the government and a period of political and economic uncertainty ensued. The U.S. acted swiftly to meet this situation. We, together with African leaders, urged the release of political prisoners, and many have been released; we provided emergency economic assistance to help avoid ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Jimmy Carter • Jimmy Carter

... Government. He declared the land an empire under himself as Napoleon III. Enthusiastic patriots protested in burning words, but most of France appeared content. Property-owners welcomed the return of any government that was strong enough to govern. [Footnote: See The Coup d'Etat.] ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... disquiet of the authorities, who looked upon this as an encroachment of barbarians menacing Spanish power. Rezanov, plenipotentiary of the Czar, was a man of charming personality, however, and was able to lull the suspicions of the indolent Spanish officials and lay his plans for a coup that never took place. From afar Britain looked with interest upon this strip of coast with its matchless harbor, and regretted that Drake had not discovered it when he wintered his ship close by in 1579. Thus Yerba Buena sprawled and dreamed in the sunshine, ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood



Words linked to "Coup" :   coup de main, putsch, success, takeover, countercoup, coup d'oeil



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com