coup

in a sentence

grouped by contextual meaning

It's the country's third coup in twenty years.

The coup conspirators were arrested.

You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars.  (source) John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

In his absence, his cousin Daoud Khan had ended the king's forty-year reign with a bloodless coup.  (source) Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, 2003

My parents' French was limited to a handful of words that had crept into Persian, including minijupe (miniskirt), bigoudi (hair roller), abat-jour (lampshade), and coup d'etat.†  (source) Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003

My country may not be very old, but unfortunately it already has a history of military coups, and when my father was eight a general called Zia ul-Haq seized power.  (source) Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala, 2013

...and was still thinking it over when the coup was called off.  (source) Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, 2010

A coup, a coup d'etat.†  (source) Victoria Aveyard, Red Queen, 2015

This had been one of the coups that convinced the bishop the Teacher was truly capable of delivering the astonishing prize he claimed he could unearth.†  (source) Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, 2003

Hatter did recognize some of the buildings, as dilapidated as they were, but he couldn't afford to feel sorrow for the changes wrought in the capital city since Redd's coup.  (source) Frank Beddor, The Looking Glass Wars, 2006

He said that his enemies were conspiring with the generals to launch a coup d'etat because they would rather see democracy dead than be governed by him.†  (source) Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits, 1986

Blondes, wars, famines, football, sex, music, coups d'etat—they all arrived on the same train.†  (source) Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things, 1997

Lin Biao had been planning a major coup for a number of years, and Chairman Mao had narrowly escaped several assassination attempts.  (source) Li Cunxin, Mao’s Last Dancer, 2003

Signing him was a coup for our club.

It was a marketing coup.

I did manage to make poor men of a few brokers in New York, but my best coup went wrong.†  (source) Oppenheim, E. Phillips, The Malefactor

The coup de theatre had not come off.†  (source) Tolstoy, Leo, War and Peace

The CERN logo had been the most brilliant coup of all.  (source) Dan Brown, Angels & Demons, 2000

"Jeano, is it true that Mary McKendry is coming?" I asked our general manager eagerly. "Yes, a real coup," he replied, beaming.  (source) Li Cunxin, Mao’s Last Dancer, 2003

P.S. You made a mistake in the Wennerström coup.  (source) Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played with Fire, 2009

But the coup the youngest daughter most wanted was to reconcile with her father in a big way.  (source) Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, 1991

It's quite a coup for me to have an Italian intellectual, especially since, in the Viennese view, anyway, so few exist.  (source) Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War, 1991

Having him argue the Amistad case would be an incredible coup.  (source) Alexs Pate, Amistad, 1997

Then had come the coup-the most brilliant point of all.  (source) Dan Brown, Angels & Demons, 2000

That's a huge coup. Congratulations.  (source) Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played with Fire, 2009

But the real coup was how Sofia had managed to have the husbands included this year.  (source) Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, 1991

Her 3-point shot with 5 seconds left in the game was the coup de grace.

"Ah," said Sofia with the sigh of one receiving the coup de grace, just as Martyn arrived with the Château d'Yquem.  (source) Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow, 2016

Unfortunately, I never did see wolves catch pike; but, having heard how they did it from Ootek, I tried it myself with considerable success, imitating the reported actions of the wolves in all respects, except that I used a short spear, instead of my teeth, with which to administer the coup de grace.  (source) Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf, 1963

Sure, that's the way it was, I thought, a short, concise verbal coup de grace, straight to the nape of the neck.  (source) Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1952

I have heard him tell with his own lips how consciousness returned while they were still upon him examining their foul deed, and how he lay biting his heart lest they hear it and wipe out their failure with a coup-de-grace, as the French would say.†  (source) Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1952

Her married daughter, Boo Boo, had intimated that it might have to be given a coup de grace with a blunt instrument before it was laid away in a wastebasket.  (source) J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey, 1957

Its use was to give the coup de grace, the final blow, to the foe who would not surrender.  (source) Jules Verne, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1871

To this compact and shapely life story, which flashes out between Aias' first strike and the coup de grace, Homer adds an evocative simile: A poplar growing in bottom lands, in a great meadow, smooth-trunked', high up to its sheath of boughs, will fall before the chariot-builder's ax of shining iron—timber that he marked for warping into chariot tire rims— and, seasoning, it lies beside the river.  (source) Homer, The Iliad, -850 B.C.

So, Williams did not deliver a coup de grace, said Burton.†  (source) John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1994

Ford leaped in with the coup de grace: "Into whatever it was the poem was about!" he yelled.†  (source) Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1979

Soon the LEP would have no option but to launch their bio-bomb, and that was when Artemis Fowl would unveil his coup de grace.†  (source) Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl, 2001

The coup de grace is misunderstood in these times.†  (source) Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity, 1980

And then the coup de grace.†  (source) Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies, 1994