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Examples
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Nothing can possibly be imagined more unique than its _coup-d'oeil_, on whatever side the city is viewed.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 347, December 20, 1828
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From various portions of the monastery, we obtain admirable views of sea and shore; but the most superb coup-d'oeil is from a tall slender tower, which shoots up above almost every other portion of the building.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 479, March 5, 1831
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The city of Berne presents a _beautiful coup-d'oeil_, and is one of the few places I have seen, where the interior does not greatly diminish the impression, occasioned by the distant prospect.
A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium
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Stockholm, the Venice of the North, has been thought by many travellers to present a more striking _coup-d'oeil_ than any other European capital, Constantinople excepted.
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It was a coup-d'oeil which had never been possible since the mediaeval masons first attached the old tower to the older church it dignified, and hence must be supposed to have had an interest apart from that of simple moonlight on ancient wall and sea and shore -- any mention of which has by this time, it is to be feared, become one of the cuckoo-cries which are heard but not regarded.
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And there are numerous brilliant essays, in the histories now before the public, which give a coup-d'oeil more or less accurate of this ten-days 'passage of arms.
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From the masts of the steamer we obtained an excellent _coup-d'oeil_ of the Sunderbunds; its swamps clothed with verdure, and intersected by innumerable inosculating channels, with banks a foot or so high.
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Our point of view was a good one -- under a single _coup-d'oeil_ commanding the encampment, and a vast extent of country around it.
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"Ha!" exclaimed the major, struck with the _coup-d'oeil_ of the interior.
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The whole structure presented the _coup-d'oeil_ of a huge birdcage, with its wires of gold!
chained_bear commented on the word coup-d'oeil
"fr. in a military sense, that fortunate aptitude of eye, by which an officer perceives at a single glance, the extent of a plain, height and form of a mountain, with all the advantages and disadvantages of the country within view, and thereby secures an accurate knowledge of the enemy’s position and movements. This term is literally a stroke of the eye." (citation in list description)
October 9, 2008