coup de main

1. 1.

   an attack without warning

   Synonymssurprise attack

   Broaderattack

   Narrowerterrorist attackambushpre-emptive strike

Questions about coup de main

What does coup de main mean?

coup de main means "an attack without warning".

What is another word for coup de main?

Close synonyms include surprise attack. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is coup de main a common word?

coup de main is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.