COUP D'OEIL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Coup d'oeil

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noun

Coup n.

1.

A sudden stroke delivered with promptness and force; used also in various ways to convey the idea of an unexpected, clever, and successful tactic or stratagem.

2.

A single roll of the wheel at roulette, or a deal at rouge et noir. (Cant)

3.

Among some tribes of North American Indians especially of the Great Plains, the act of striking or touching an enemy in warfare with the hand or at close quarters, as with a short stick, in such a manner as by custom to entitle the doer to count the deed an act of bravery; hence, any of various other deeds recognized by custom as acts of bravery or honor. "While the coup was primarily, and usually, a blow with something held in the hand, other acts in warfare which involved great danger to him who performed them were also reckoned coups by some tribes." "Among the Blackfeet the capture of a shield, bow, gun, war bonnet, war shirt, or medicine pipe was deemed a coup."

Coup de grace, the stroke of mercy with which an executioner ends by death the sufferings of the condemned; hence, a decisive, finishing stroke.

Coup de main (Mil.), a sudden and unexpected movement or attack.

Coup de soleil (Med.), a sunstroke. See Sunstroke.

Coup d'état (Politics), a sudden, decisive exercise of power whereby the existing government is subverted without the consent of the people; an unexpected measure of state, more or less violent; a stroke of policy.

Coup d'oeil.

(a)

A single view; a rapid glance of the eye; a comprehensive view of a scene; as much as can be seen at one view.

(b)

The general effect of a picture.

(c)

(Mil.) The faculty or the act of comprehending at a glance the weakness or strength of a military position, of a certain arrangement of troops, the most advantageous position for a battlefield, etc.

See images of 'Coup d'oeil'

Etymology of 'Coup d'oeil'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Coup d'oeil" Quotes from Famous Books

... down it, he saw at the end, in an arbor covered with jasmine, clematis, and broom, a group covered with ribbons, feathers, velvets, and swords. Perhaps all this finery was slightly old-fashioned, but for Nerac it was brilliant, and even Chicot, coming straight from Paris, was satisfied with the coup d'oeil. A page preceded Chicot. ...

— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... votre facon ne reste pas longtemps au berceau: votre premier coup d'oeil a fait naitre le mien; le second lui a donne la facon; le troisieme l'a rendu grand garcon. Tachons de l'etablir au plus vite; ayez soin de lui, puisque vous ...

— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... the glimpses given us by contemporaries so vivid and precious. And St. Simon, one of the great masters of the picturesque, lets us into the secret of his art when he tells us how, in that wonderful scene of the death of Monseigneur, he saw "du premier coup d'oeil vivement porte, tout ce qui leur echappoit et tout ce qui les accableroit." It is the gift of producing this reality that almost makes us blush, as if we had been caught peeping through a keyhole, and had surprised ...

— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... vegetation etoit plus active; on y remarquoit de beaux arbustes et quelques arbres plus gros, qui constituoient de petits bosquets tres-agreables; le reste de l'ile, avec une disposition differente, offroit un coup d'oeil bien different aussi: parmi ces monceaux de laves entassees sans ordre, regne une sterilite generale; et la couleur noire de ces roches volcaniques ajoutoit encore a l'aspect triste et monotone de cette petite ile. La marche y est difficile, ...

— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... to the Louvre.[43] What are the exhibitions of London, modern or ancient? What are Lord Stafford's, Grosvenor's, Angerstein's, &c., in comparison with this unrivalled gallery? Words cannot describe the coup d'oeil. Figure to yourself a magnificent room so long that you would be unable to recognise a person at the other extremity, so long that the perspective lines terminate in a point, covered with the finest works of art all classed and numbered so as to afford the utmost ...

— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

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