Meaning of coup de force | Babel Free

Definitions

A sudden, violent act.

Equivalents

Examples

“On 26 August 1718, in a remarkable coup de force, Orléans crushed the political audacity and embryonic constitutional pretensions of the Parlement.”

“The undecidable issue between these different institutions and procedures had in the end to be determined at the boundary of all of them, through coups de force.”

“It can, of course, always be argued that the acceptance of democracy by the Communists and by the Catholic Church was a matter of power relations: the church had everything to lose from a struggle for power, and the strategic balance between the Soviet Union and NATO barred the French and Italian Communist Parties from any possibility of a coup de force.”

“Then, in a remarkable coup de force, he convinced Lilienthal to set up a naval reactors branch at the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)—and had himself appointed its head.”

“On 9 March 1945, […] the Japanese launched a coup de force, overthrowing eighty years of French rule in a matter of days.”

CEFR level