coup.
A quick, brilliant, and highly successful act.
Meaning & usage
A quick, brilliant, and highly successful act.
Of Native Americans, a blow against an enemy delivered in a way that demonstrates bravery.
A coup d'état.
A takeover of one group by another.
A single roll of the wheel at roulette, or a deal in rouge et noir.
One of various named strategies employed by the declarer to win more tricks, such as the Bath coup.
Where this word comes from
Reborrowed in modern times from modern French coup (“blow, strike”), from Old French coup, colp, from Late Latin colpus, from Latin colaphus. Doublet of cope and colpus. The same Old French word had been borrowed into Middle English as coupe, caupe (with different pronunciation).
To execute a coup.
To subject (a nation) to a coup d'état.
To empty out, overturn, or tilt, such as from a cart or wheelbarrow.
Where this word comes from
Reborrowed in modern times from modern French coup (“blow, strike”), from Old French coup, colp, from Late Latin colpus, from Latin colaphus. Doublet of cope and colpus. The same Old French word had been borrowed into Middle English as coupe, caupe (with different pronunciation).
To exchange, barter.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English coupen (“to buy; (figuratively) to pay for”), from Old Norse kaupa (“to buy, bargain, barter, exchange”).
Try it on your idea.
coup has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.