Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
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 |





"Coup" Quotes from Famous Books



... Texans has made what prairie men call a "coup." On counting the corpses of their slain enemies they find that at least one-half of the Tenawa warriors have fallen, including their chief. They can make an approximate estimate of the number that was opposed ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... 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 classed and numbered so ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... the Ruo, Major Serpa Pinto returned to Mozambique for instructions, and in his absence Lieutenant Coutinho crossed the river, attacked the Makololo chiefs and sought to obtain possession of the Shire highlands by a coup de main. John Buchanan, the British vice-consul, lost no time in declaring the country under British protection, and his action was subsequently confirmed by Johnston on his return from a treaty-making expedition on Lake Nyasa. On the news of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... System for the Regeneration of the Arctic Regions—the Greenland affair of my friend de Mersch. Churchill is going to make a grand coup with that—to keep himself from slipping down hill, and, of course, it would add immensely to your national prestige. And he only half sees what de Mersch is ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... around them, the dust spurting sidewise. The crowd gasped, for as he passed the bays it was impossible to judge his speed accurately; and after the breath of astonishment the cheers broke in a wave. There was a confusion of emotion in Marianne. A victory for the chestnut would be a coup for her pocketbook when it came to buying the Coles horses, but it would be a distinct blow to her pride as a horsewoman. Moreover, there was that in the stallion which roused instinctive aversion. Hatred for Cordova sustained him, for there was no ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... myself, however, bound in conscience to tell the whole truth of this affair. In perambulating about the town, in the course of the day, which was very hot, I got affected by a coup de soleil, which gave me a violent fever and head-ache. I have strong suspicions that this circumstance acted as a powerful "preventer stay" to my virtue, and enabled me to put the devil to flight on this trying occasion. The mother of these damsels appeared to ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English

... for the poor girl, but I felt like a surgeon. She would be glad later on, for I was convinced that in a very short while poor old Harold must crack under the strain, especially after I had put across the coup which I was meditating for ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... and said nothing. On the other hand, it well might be that Gungadhura's searchers had stumbled on it. In that case, there was that secret letter from headquarters hurriedly placed in his top drawer when the priest came in, that would give good excuse for putting screws on Gungadhura. A coup d'etat was not beyond the pale of possibility. As a champion of indiscretion and a judge of circumstances, he would dare. The gleam in his eyes betrayed that he would dare, and the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... sounded quite complimentary. 'We can do with him what we like,' he asserted confidently. 'Oh, yes. Certainly we must hasten to pay a visit to that—' (another awful descriptive epithet quite unfit for repetition). 'Devil take me if we don't pull off a coup that will set us all up ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... stronger, more united, more attractive to men on both sides of the iron curtain, then inevitably there will come a time of change within the communist world. We do not know how that change will come about, whether by deliberate decision in the Kremlin, by coup d'etat, by revolution, by defection of satellites, or perhaps by some unforeseen combination of factors ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

... 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, ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell

... the first outrageous error to a slight extent by killing the Turkish colonel's orderly, missing the commander himself by almost a yard. My five men all missed with their second shots, and then it was too late to pull off the complete coup we had dared to hope for. The entire staff took cover, and started a veritable hail of fire with their repeating pistols, all aimed at us, and aimed as wildly as our ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... aristocracy; and when the inhabitants sent a deputation to solicit an indemnity for the damage the town had sustained during the bombardment a member of the Convention threatened them from the tribune with "indemnities a coup de baton!" that is, in our vernacular ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... him quite near, while he put up his pencil. "And the box—did you get it? Monsieur went off like a coup-de-vent the other night; I had ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... not forget Waterloo Day. Just as I and my Reader Boy were going into the Pantry for some grub, I thought of young Ensign Leeke, not 18, who carried the Colours of that famous 52nd which gave the 'coup de grace' to the Imperial Guard about 8 p.m. and then marched to Rossomme, seeing the Battle was won: and the Colour-serjeant found some bread in some French Soldier's knapsack, and brought a bit to his Ensign, 'You must want a bit, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... used to the sight of death of their own causing, but they had a horror of that which came by Nature's hand. The purple face and loud gasps of the stricken man terrified them out of their senses. 'C'est un coup,' was the cry, and they went clattering off to the servants. These, all men but one old crone, came in a mass to the door, looked in, beheld their master rigid and prostrate on the floor, supported by the prisoner, and with fresh shrieks about 'Mesdames! a priest! ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his watch and looked at it. It was nine o'clock. In three hours more would have fallen the coup. But from this man's words he knew that the stroke was now with the Prince Pasha. Yet, if this pale Inglesi, this Christian sorcerer, knew the truth in a vision only, and had not declared it to Kaid, there ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 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 ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... went on to tell of old Kobad's final coup and of how the Rajah, receiving news of some mischief afoot, had sent an urgent message of warning that had taken Nick straight to the Palace. Thence he had gone in disguise to the haunts of Kobad Shikan's conspirators, but here he had ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... my client of this morning was certainly a secret service agent—otherwise a spy—of one of those two countries, who did not choose to take the very severe risks which I had taken this morning, but who would, on the other hand, reap the full reward of the daring coup, whilst I was to be ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... about the headlong flight of every lawless character out of Linrock, the very hour that Snecker and Wright and Sampson were known to have fallen. Steele expressed deep feeling, almost mortification, that the credit of that final coup had gone to him, instead of me. His denial and explanation had been only a few soundless words in the face of a grateful and clamorous populace that tried to reward him, to make him mayor of Linrock. Sampson had made restitution in every case where he had personally gained at the loss ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... growing weaker and weaker, until at length objects commenced to blur before my eyes and I staggered and blundered about more asleep than awake, and then it was that he worked his pretty little coup that came near ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... coup are simple and all the deadlier because they are so simple. The main thing is to invite your chief opponent as a smart entertainer; you know the one I mean—the woman who scored such a distinct social triumph in the season ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... too, was all in his favour. Beaufoy was one of the younger men and not at all in the King's confidence. If Louis had any sinister coup in his mind, Leslie, or Saint-Pierre, or Lessaix himself would ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... predisposed by the treatment he met with, poor boy. They say he drank quarts of iced things at the dinner and ball, and ate nothing. This may be only the effect of the shock, but his head is burning, and there is a disposition to wander. However, he has had his coup de grace, and that may account for it. ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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, livres a vos propres lumieres, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... hear him talk, by reading to them the inconsequent pages of Olympia, ou les Vengeances romaines; it is rich comedy, but the fragment carries us away, and at the beginning of page 209: "robe frola dans le silence. Tout a coup le cardinal Borborigano parut aux yeux de la duchesse————" we exclaim, don't we, with Bianchon: "Le cardinal Borborigano! Par les clefs du pape, si vous ne m'accordez pas qu'il se trouve une magnifique creation seulement dans le nom, si vous ne voyez pas a ces mots: ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... some indignant remark below his breath, and walked off. The shabby-looking passenger was pacing up and down the platform outside in a badly-made dust-coat. As they passed their lips moved. The Count's seemed to mutter, 'C'est un coup manque.' ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... by keeping a dead silence about it, but by being just witty enough to state it wrong. Thus, some of the Liberal official papers have almost screwed up their courage to the sticking-point about the bestial coup d'etat in South Africa. They have screwed up their courage to the sticking-point; and it has stuck. It cannot get any further; because it has missed the main point. The modern Liberals make their feeble attempts to attack the introduction of slavery ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... 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 ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... Convention, framing the Constitution of the Year III., decided that two-thirds of the existing assembly should keep their places, and that only one-third should be popularly elected. This led to the revolt of the Thirteenth Vendemiaire, and afterwards to the coup d'etat of the Eighteenth Fructidor. In that sense, no doubt, Robespierre's proposal was the indirect root of much mischief. But it is childish to believe that if a hundred of the most prominent members of the Constituent ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... sur la Litterature du Second Empire Francais, depuis le Coup d'Etat du deux Decembre. Par William Reymond. Berlin: A. Charisius. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... Smith an air of mystery, portentous and suggestive. He looked like one meditating a coup d'etat, or, perhaps, it might better be said, a coup de main, as the hand is with schoolmasters, generally, the ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger

... 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 of the laws which as President he was sworn to support. ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... very vagueness was a further inspiration to the Governor. He swept details aside. He saw only the grand coup, the huge results, the East conquered, the march of empire rolling westward, finally arriving at its starting point, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... this venture hung Napoleon's world-projects. Coute que coute, he had told Mouche, he must bring off this coup. So he was employing on it the pick of the first Army the world ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... "The great coup, of course, would be the destruction of the rock tunnel of Saverne, which was the special object of our presence here. Failing that, we must try a bridge. The tunnel, however, is the great affair. Once destroyed, there would be no repairing it, for many weeks. My proposition is, therefore, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... dubbed the "German Ambassador." Everyone has been much too busy to give thought to anything so personal as position or titles. This morning, however, time was found to send my name to the Minister of Foreign Affairs as "Attache Civil a l'Ambassade Americaine," and to request the customary "coup fil." ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... 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 had so ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... began on Monday morning, July 15th, and extended from Chateau-Thierry eastward along the valley of the Maine, northward to Rheims and thence eastward. By a remarkable coup, one small patrol of French and Americans deprived the enemy of the element of surprise in the attack. On the morning of the previous day, this patrol successfully raided the enemy lines to the east of Rheims ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... manager 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

... plant before the door of their mistress. If we turn to the French, we discover that the military genius of France dictated the proverb Maille a maille se fait le haubergeon: "Link by link is made the coat of mail;" and, Tel coup de langue est pire qu'un coup de lance; "The tongue strikes deeper than the lance;" and Ce qui vient du tambour s'en retourne a la flute; "What comes by the tabor goes back with the pipe." Point d'argent point de Suisse has become ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... coup de theatre is not everything, As well he's aware, that tragedian troubled Who is gliding so gloomily off at the wing. Hope's cup at his lips lately brimmingly bubbled, Now "foiled by a novice, eclipsed by a boy!" Is the thought in his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various

... 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 as that ...
— The Laws of Euchre - As adopted by the Somerset Club of Boston, March 1, 1888 • H. C. Leeds

... "it is a matter of the greatest importance—if we make this coup we can easily make a hundred thousand pounds within a fortnight. The general at first refused and became a trifle—well, just a trifle resentful, even vindictive; but by showing a bold front I've brought him round. To-morrow I shall clinch the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... with strain and with the success of his coup that he all but fainted when Stryker, his scanty hair tousled and his fat face comical with bewilderment, stumbled out of his sleeping cubicle ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee

... can beat the game in the long run if you keep at it," he answered simply. "It is mathematically impossible. Consider. We are Croesuses—we hire players to stake money for us on every possible number at every coup. How do we come out? If there are no '0' or '00,' we come out after each coup precisely where we started—we are paying our own money back and forth among ourselves; we have neither more nor less. But with the '0' and '00' the bank sweeps the board every so often. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... 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 this ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... always experienced in the 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 ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... 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 ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach

... shirt being like a riddle, and his nether nankeens but thin for such weather; but he was a brave lad; and sorry were the folks for him, when he fell off in taking over sharp a turn, by which old Pullen, the bell-ringer, who was holding the post, was made to coup the creels, and got a bloody nose.—And but the last was a wearyful one! He was all life, and as gleg as an eel. Up and down he went; and up and down philandered the beast on its hind-legs and its fore-legs, funking like mad; yet though he was not above thirteen, or fourteen at most, he ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... are 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 we're up against ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... 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

... the 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

... coup-de-main can be executed without risk, for the young person sets off this evening to pass a week with an aunt who lives at the chateau of Lude. I charge myself with it, and you need take no trouble as for the scruples of the young lady, be sure that they will ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... of Panipat was decisive. Naturally enough, Bairam assumed complete control of the State. His rule was able, but harsh and arrogant. After three years the boy king of a sudden coup d'etat assumed the reins of Government. Perhaps it was fortunate for both that the fallen minister was assassinated by a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... Mustacheff, a Russian of enormous wealth, who clenched his fists, beat his breast, cursed his stars, and absolutely cried with grief: not for losing money, but for neglecting to win and play upon a coup de vingt, a series in which the red was turned up twenty times running: which series, had he but played, it is clear that he might have broken M. Lenoir's bank, and shut up the gambling-house, and doubled his own fortune—when he would have been no happier, and all the balls and music, all ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... deposited in the liquids in which they afterwards appear. For my own part, I conceive that, with the particulars of M. Pasteur's experiments before us, we cannot fail to arrive at his conclusions; and that the doctrine of spontaneous generation has received a final 'coup de grace'. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... accomplices were amazed at the developments, and watched the trouble grow with the greatest concern. The contests on the open ground beyond the quarries were frequent and free, and then there came a lull; but from Cow Flat came rumours of a grand coup meditated by the leaders on that side. Preparations were being made for an attack by a large body, and the forcible abduction of all the goats, irrespective of individual rights. The excitement had ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... primitive raiding party. The leader dropped right onto the hood of my sled. An act of bravery, no less. Counting coup, you see?" ...
— Missing Link • Frank Patrick Herbert

... wagons were safely harboured in the Police Yard and the thieves safely jailed under lock and key, the Chief, as if to make amends for his previous surliness, shook hands all round and congratulated the men on their coup. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge, Il ouvre d'un seul coup son eventail de fer, Ou dans le satin blanc se ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... that what has happened, although it came upon me like coup de tonnerre, and has given me a great deal of bile, and my stomach I find weakened from that cause, more than from any other,—for I'm more and more abstemious every day,—yet I now see that all will end well, and that in the meantime neither you (n)or Lady C(arlisle) will make ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... centuries of struggles. Instead of society itself having conquered a new point, only the State appears to have returned to its oldest form, to the simply brazen rule of the sword and the club. Thus, upon the "coup de main" of February, 1848, comes the response of the "coup de tete" December, 1851. So won, so lost. Meanwhile, the interval did not go by unutilized. During the years 1848-1851, French society retrieved in abbreviated, because revolutionary, method ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... 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 ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the Fort. Had it been from the south, he would scarcely have made a report. Before ten o'clock they had arrived. They numbered about fifty warriors in full war paint. They were singing their war songs, and fastened to their coup sticks were one or two terribly fresh-looking scalps. At their head was Red Cloud. A hundred troopers were under arms, so they did not hesitate to admit the Indians. The warriors passed through the gate; then spreading out before the Colonel's ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... glaur it wis fylin' and crieshin' the grun', When Private McPhee guidit Private McPhun. "Keep clear o' them corpses—they're maybe no deid! Haud on! There's a big muckle crater aheid. Look oot! There's a sap; we'll be haein' a coup. A staur-shell! For Godsake! Doun, lad, on yer daup. Bear aff tae yer richt. . . . Aw yer jist daein' fine: Before the nicht's feenished on haggis ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... dinner without soup, which is regarded as an indispensable overture; it is commonly followed by "le coup d'Apres," a glass of pure wine, which they consider so wholesome after soup, that their proverb says, the physician thereby loses a fee. Whether the glass of wine be so much more advantageous for the patient than it is for his doctor, we know not, but believe it ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... really begin to do things. That is on the supposition that my money only increases by its banking power, which is the smallest way to look at it. In seven years I'd start with a billion preparing for the grand coup of the next panic. It always comes within a decade. The man who enters a panic with one billion dollars in cash if he had the nerve, the daring, and the brains can emerge ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... New Orleans; there was reverence there and memory for Bonaparte. There was gladness and exultation now that Louis Napoleon had accomplished a coup d'etat and established a throne upon the ruins of the republic. His soldiers were in the Crimea, fighting as desperately as if great wealth or fame could be won by their valor and death. But it was all for ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... play it over four or five times as piteously as you can:' which the other did. And when he came to 'tout est perdu' she sang it over twice; then turning to the other side of the couch, she said to those who stood around: 'Tout est perdu a ce coup et a bon escient;' all is lost this ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... consequences in the form 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." He re-entered the Chamber ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... on the side of Germany was actuated by a German diplomatic coup, which in itself is regarded now as further evidence that a clear road through to the Dardanelles was considered in Berlin as a primary and imperative purpose ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... anaphylaxis was the basis of Dr. Rutledge's coup. The laws governing this reaction had been more or less worked out by a group of scientists in the twentieth century. They had demonstrated that if a guinea-pig or rabbit were injected with the blood serum of another species, a subsequent dose of an infinitely small quantity of ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield

... 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

... know who my visitor might be, and what was his business at the Consulate. "Am I then so changed?" he exclaimed with a vast depth of tragic intonation; and after a little blind and bewildered talk, behold! the truth flashed upon me. It was the Doctor of Divinity! If I had meditated a scene or a coup de theatre, I could not have contrived a more effectual one than by this simple and genuine difficulty of recognition. The poor Divine must have felt that he had lost his personal identity through the misadventures of one little week. And, to say the truth, he did look as if, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a plan, on which he was working, and which was meant to be a coup. But things went so fast there was no time to carry it into effect. The first thing that occurred was a message from the Charity Hospital that Mrs. Watson was dying, and had asked for me. I did not care much about going. There is a sort of melancholy pleasure to be had out of a funeral, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... had for him a double interest. A panic in Wall Street had all but ruined Van Meter. He had attempted to corner the bread market. The wheat crop had been ruined by a hard winter, and the little black eyes, watching, believed the coup could be made. ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... quick movement by the Martians, which had been the forerunner of the former coup, was observed; again a blinding flash burst from their war engines and instantaneously a shiver ran through the frame of the flagship; the air within quivered with strange pulsations and seemed suddenly to have assumed the ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss

... 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 ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... was killed on the barricade in the Faubourg Saint Antoine on December 2, 1852, during Louis Bonaparte's coup d'Etat. ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... up from Athens, where I had found the Allied diplomats still smarting under the memories of their ignominious experiences following Constantine's spectacular coup of the previous December, and it was by no means the least of these who had told me point-blank that he could not conceive how it would be possible that Saloniki should be returned to Greece after the war. Of course ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... in the Bengal Artillery, told me he thought the French used the natives much better than we do those of India. I differ from him. One of the French officers with whom I dined told me the only way to manage the "Indigenes" was by that vigorous measure, "un coup de fouet," and, from what I saw, I believe it ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham

... 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 ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... them when they were close," cried one passenger. "I said, he would not try. It was un grand shot, messieurs, un coup merveilleux." ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at Somerton to enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... buildings, the English found out from their prisoners how great their peril had been. For the French force sent against them had been a strong one, well equipped, and hopeful of surprising the place and carrying it by a coup de main. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... 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' ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... whose directors had all been selected for their religious bias rather than their business qualifications, burst at one fell coup, almost in the very hour of my return home, dissipating into thin air, as the Latin poet has it, all the savings of a lifetime which my mother had invested in the swindle—the provision left behind by my father, when he died, for her use, and the subsequent benefit of my sister and myself. The devout ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... universel, que plusieurs ne pensent leur interts particuliers, & que les Chefs (sachems) principalement ne fassent joer plusieurs ressorts secrets pour venir bout de leurs intrigues. Il y en a tel, dont l'adresse jou si bien coup sr, qu'il fait dliberer le Conseil plusieurs jours de suite, sur une matire dont la dtermination est arrte entre lui & les principales ttes avant d'avoir t mise sur le tapis. Cependant comme les Chefs s'entre-regardent, & qu'aucun ne veut parotre ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... 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

... made him stand better in his own eyes before the girl. He need no longer await the whims of chance to bring her to him; he could go in search of her. Somehow he had never thought of her as a girl to be won by the process of slow toil—by industry; she must be seized and carried away at a single coup. The parchment which rustled crisply in ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... sport. Cricket he could no longer play for want of good and level ground, but then there was another game which, at least, could be played or learned under easy circumstances, even on a quiet street or big "free coup," and that was Association football. They soon took to it kindly, and many of them struggled hard and procured a ground. Not one, of course, like that on which they used to have their cricket matches long ago, but one on which Farmer Lyon grazed his cows and sheep, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... distinguished piece of service, got into the chaise as directed. Dinmont followed; Wasp, who had kept close by them, sprung in at the same time, and the carriage drove off very fast. "Have a care a' me," said Dinmont, "but this is the queerest thing yet!—Odd, I trust they'll no coup [*Upset.] us—and then what's to come o' Dumple?—I would rather be on his back than in the Deuke's coach, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... were taken for the season, and you couldn't get a place, 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 ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... freely loose, besides 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 ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... and his adjutant, as has been told, and it need not be repeated how she humbled the pride of India's army on their knees. She would have to forego the delight of being Yasmini before she could handle any situation or plan any coup along ordinary lines, and Kirby and his adjutant were not the first Englishmen, nor likely to be the last, ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... master hold 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. A few seconds more ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... me about a wonderful racing coup to be made to-morrow. Isn't it rather thrilling, Jean? He says it will be quite possible for me to make five million francs without any risk ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... It was a depressing time for him, so depressing that he could see very little hope. His risk was enormous. He felt that the probability was that this raiding gang were well enough posted as to the store of gold he held in his cellars. He felt that, should James or any of his people decide upon a coup, the attack would be well timed, when the miners were out at their work, and he and the camp ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... soldiers, we should have carried every thing before us. The frighted 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

... Stella of the Chatiments and the Pauvres Gens of the Legende. On one page would be found that admirable Souvenir de la Nuit du Quatre, which is at once the impeachment and the condemnation of the Coup d'Etat; and on another the little epic of Eviradnus, with its immortal serenade, a culmination of ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... a matter of history—that secret history of a nation which is often so much more intimate and interesting than its public chronicles—that Oberstein, eager to complete the coup of his lifetime, came to the lure and was safely engulfed for fifteen years in a British prison. In his trunk were found the invaluable Bruce-Partington plans, which he had put up for auction in all the naval ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle

... at 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 horse ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... 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

... the sand-ridge, from which it did not deviate to the licence of an inch. Backward and forward did it traverse the saddle in a longitudinal direction,—now poised upon the pommel,—now sinking downward into the seat, and then rising to the level of the coup,—now turning in the opposite direction, and retracing in long, uncouth strides, the path over which it appeared to have been passing since the earliest hour of ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... murky night the performers remained over in S—, to take an early train for the next stand. The railroad show was then an untried experiment. Barnum and Coup and others were planning the great innovation, but there was a grave question as to its practicability. Later on Coup made the venture, transporting his show by rail. Such men as Yankee Robinson, Cole and even P. T. Barnum traveled by wagon road until that brave attempt was made. The railroad was ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon



Words linked to "Coup" :   putsch, success, countercoup, coup de theatre, takeover, coup de main, group action, coup de grace



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com