Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A sudden action undertaken to surprise an enemy.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. a sudden and unexpected movement or attack.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an attack without warning
Etymologies
- French : coup, stroke, blow + de, of + main, hand.
Examples
“PÈrier had expelled him from France in 1831, he and a few officers from Strasburg attempted, but failed in, a coup de main (1836).”
“The first attempt to take Epinal in a coup de main had failed.”
Panzer Aces
“By his brilliant coup de main at Yelnya the German commander had precipitated Timoshenko's counterattack and thereby drawn the infantry of Army Group Centre across the Dnieper and into the battle, but at the same time the Panzers had remained in action, and so the very factors which had kept the centre of gravity in his hands for those three extra weeks now made it inevitable that there would be a pause.”
Barbarossa
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘coup de main’.
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Panvocalic polyglot
Non-English words that contain all the vowels once, "y" optional. For English examples, see Panvocalics and other lists linked there. Please tag contributions with the language they come from. Phra...
murcielago, bildungsromane, aleikoum, autrefois, consideratum, platenstudio, affettuosi, hipocentaury, vocalique, aegritudo, au revoir, au poivre and 1590 more...
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Fun fancy French words
Fun fancy French words to wield, impress and sound pretentious with
raison d etre, garçonnière, recherché, bisous, soigne, apercu, decharne, outre, oubliette, soi disant, mot juste, louche and 4 more...
chained_bear usage on coup-de-main. Oct 9, 2008