Meaning
A decisive finishing blow: originally the death blow or shot delivered to end the suffering of someone mortally wounded, and in modern English almost always figurative, meaning the final act or event that finishes off a struggling person, project or institution. Literary to journalistic register, often with dramatic or ironic overtones. Dramatic and often ironic; commonly mispronounced 'coo de grah' when the final s of grâce is in fact sounded. Regional use: General English (borrowed from French).
Origin
French for 'stroke of grace' or 'blow of mercy' (coup = blow, grâce = mercy). It originally described putting a mortally wounded person or animal out of its misery, whether on the battlefield, in executions (an officer's pistol shot after an ineffective firing-squad volley) or in slaughter. Merriam-Webster records that English borrowed it directly from French at the end of the 17th century and dates its first known use to 1699. English later extended it to mean an act or event that puts a definite end to something, a figurative sense the phrase's literal military meaning did not need in French. The circumflex is often dropped in English (coup de grace), and although the final s of grâce is sounded in French, the phrase is frequently rendered 'coo de grah', a pronunciation usage guides treat as an error.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- coup de gras
- coups de grâce
Usage Examples
- Rising fuel costs delivered the coup de grâce to the ferry operator, which had struggled since the pandemic.
- A red card in stoppage time was the coup de grâce for the visitors' fading hopes.
- Critics called the hastily rewritten final chapter the coup de grâce of an already weak novel.