Sample Sentences for
coup
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

coup as in:  deposed in the coup

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A successful coup with no bloodshed.
coup = the sudden overthrow of a government by use of limited force
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    It's the country's third coup in twenty years.
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    The coup conspirators were arrested.
    coup = related to the sudden overthrow of a government by use of limited force
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    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)
    coup = sudden overthrow of a government by use of limited force
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    In his absence, his cousin Daoud Khan had ended the king's forty-year reign with a bloodless coup.  (source)
    coup = sudden overthrow of a government by use of limited force
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    A coup, a coup d'etat.†  (source)
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    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)
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    ...and was still thinking it over when the coup was called off.  (source)
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    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)
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    Blondes, wars, famines, football, sex, music, coups d'etat—they all arrived on the same train.†  (source)
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    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)
    coup = sudden overthrow of the government
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    During first hours after coup d'etat we were faced with a problem we had never managed to plan—Adam Selene himself.†  (source)
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    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)
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    But tonight, as we've agreed, we're staging a coup on the same Avenida where a decade ago the dictator was cornered and wounded on his way to a tryst with his mistress.  (source)
    coup = a sudden overthrow of a government by use of limited force
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coup as in:  a financial coup

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We consider it a coup for the University to get the new presidential library.
coup = brilliant and notable success
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    Signing him was a coup for our club.
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    It was a marketing coup.
    coup = a brilliant and notable success
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    It's quite a coup for me to have an Italian intellectual, especially since, in the Viennese view, anyway, so few exist.  (source)
    coup = notable achievement
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    But the coup the youngest daughter most wanted was to reconcile with her father in a big way.  (source)
    coup = notable achievement
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    Having him argue the Amistad case would be an incredible coup.  (source)
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    P.S. You made a mistake in the Wennerström coup.  (source)
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    "Jeano, is it true that Mary McKendry is coming?" I asked our general manager eagerly. "Yes, a real coup," he replied, beaming.  (source)
    coup = brilliant and notable success
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    The CERN logo had been the most brilliant coup of all.  (source)
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    But the real coup was how Sofia had managed to have the husbands included this year.  (source)
    coup = notable achievement
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    That's a huge coup. Congratulations.  (source)
    coup = brilliant and notable success
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    Then had come the coup-the most brilliant point of all.  (source)
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    It was a coup for the youngest daughter to have gathered the scattered family in the Midwest for a weekend.  (source)
    coup = notable achievement
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    Blomkvist had said a polite hello to the girl and rapidly discovered that she had only the vaguest interest in journalism beyond that she "wanted to be seen on TV" and that—Blomkvist suspected—at present it was quite a coup to work at Millennium.  (source)
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coup de grace as in:  delivered the coup de grace

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Mercifully, she delivered the coup de grace.
coup de grace = deathblow
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    Her 3-point shot with 5 seconds left in the game was the coup de grace.
    coup de grace = final play of the game
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    "Ah," said Sofia with the sigh of one receiving the coup de grace, just as Martyn arrived with the Château d'Yquem.  (source)
    coup de grace = deathblow
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    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)
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    Sure, that's the way it was, I thought, a short, concise verbal coup de grace, straight to the nape of the neck.  (source)
    coup de grace = deathblow
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    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)
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    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)
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    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)
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    So, Williams did not deliver a coup de grace, said Burton.†  (source)
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    Ford leaped in with the coup de grace: "Into whatever it was the poem was about!" he yelled.†  (source)
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    And then the coup de grace.†  (source)
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    The coup de grace is misunderstood in these times.†  (source)
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    The children had to be whisked out of the way so they would not see the horrendous spectacle of the gardener hosing the dogs down with freezing water until, many gallons and kicks and other indignities later, Barrabas became unstuck from his beloved, leaving her to die in the courtyard of the house, where Severo was obliged to finish her off with a coup de grace.†  (source)
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    Finally, the coup de grace: a jaunty "apple cap," a pinwheel of black leather with a tiny stem in the center.†  (source)
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