putsch

noun

ˈpu̇ch 

: a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government

Did you know?

In its native Swiss German, putsch originally meant "knock" or "thrust," but these days both German and English speakers use it to refer to the kind of government overthrow also known as a coup d'état or coup. Putsch debuted in English shortly before the tumultuous Kapp Putsch of 1920, in which Wolfgang Kapp and his right-wing supporters attempted to overthrow the German Weimar government. Putsch attempts were common in Weimar Germany, so the word appeared often in the stories of the English journalists who described the insurrections. Adolf Hitler also attempted a putsch (known as the Beer Hall Putsch), but he ultimately gained control of the German government via other means.

Examples of putsch in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Three months after the putsch, there were five times as many, residents said. —Hannah Beech, New York Times, 31 Dec. 2024

Not for those who suffered repression under the junta, but for those victims of leftist guerrillas before the putsch. —Isabel Debre, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Mar. 2024

Had a putsch materialized, Benin would have joined a growing list of African countries to have experienced a military coup over the past four years. —Salah Ben Hammou, The Conversation, 22 Oct. 2024

The army revolted in Algeria, invaded Corsica, and fifty thousand paratroopers were set to descend on France when the panicked government called de Gaulle back to power to avert the putsch and design a new constitution—the Fifth Republic. —Rosanna Warren, Harper's Magazine, 25 June 2024

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from German Putsch, borrowed from Swiss German Putsch, Butsch "resounding noise, violent shove, rush against an obstacle or toward an undertaking, popular disturbance," of imitative origin

Note: In Switzerland the word Putsch became associated in the first half of the nineteenth century with civil disturbances that arose from the lack of rural representation in the government of the Swiss cantons—as in the canton of Aargau, where a rural revolt (the Freiämtersturm) forced changes in the cantonal constitution in 1830, and particularly in Zürich, where a march into the city by rural conservatives on September 6, 1839, resulted in bloodshed and an overthrow of the liberal city administration (the Züriputsch). The word may have been popularized in Germany by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller, who used it in an oft-quoted passage in his novel Der grüne Heinrich ("Green Henry," 1855): "Das Wort Putsch stammt aus der guten Stadt Zürich, wo man einen plötzlichen vorübergehenden Regenguss einen Putsch nennt und demgemäss die eifersüchtigen Nachbarstädte jede närrische Gemütsbewegung, Begeisterung, Zornigkeit, Laune oder Mode der Züricher einen Zürichputsch nennen." ("The word Putsch originates in the good city of Zürich, where people call a sudden passing downpour a Putsch, and accordingly the jealous neighboring cities give the name 'Zürich Putsch' [Swiss German Züriputsch] to every foolish emotional display, inspiration, burst of anger, mood or fashion of the Zürich natives.") Keller's usage has no connection to politics, however, and in any case, as the Schweizerisches Idiotikon notes, he appears to have confused Putsch with Gutsch (also Gutz, Gütsch) "torrent, overflow of a liquid."

First Known Use

1919, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for putsch

• butch

Podcast

Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox!