Word of the Day
: December 4, 2019coup de grâce
playWhat It Means
1 : a deathblow or death shot administered to end the suffering of one mortally wounded
2 : a decisive finishing blow, act, or event
coup de grâce in Context
"Quarterback Jake Luton completed 18 of 26 passes for 285 yards and five TDs. He added the coup de grace in the fourth quarter with a 19-yard bootleg scamper for OSU's final score." — Ken Goe, The Oregonian, 7 Oct. 2019
"The Bahama nuthatch was already thought to be extinct before Dorian hit, and the hurricane nailed Grand Bahama, where one or two nuthatches may have still been alive. 'This could have been the coup de grâce for the nuthatch,' Dr. Steadman said." — James Gorman, The New York Times, 17 Sept. 2019
Did You Know?
Borrowed directly from French and first appearing in English at the end of the 17th century, coup de grâce (also sometimes styled without the circumflex as coup de grace) translates literally as "stroke of grace" or "blow of mercy," and originally referred to a mercy killing, or to the act of putting to death a person or animal who was severely injured and unlikely to recover. (In some contexts the term is used to refer to the final act of executing a convicted criminal.) Later, coup de grâce had come to mean "an act or event that puts a definite end to something." Other coup terms that have made the jump from French to English include coup de main, for a sudden, forceful attack, and coup d’état for a violent overthrow of a government usually by a small group.
Test Your Vocabulary with M-W Quizzes
Name That Synonym
Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of coup de grâce meaning "a decisive defeat": KNOWMSADC.
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