coup de theatre

Questions about coup de theatre

What does coup de theatre mean?

coup de theatre means "a dramatic surprise". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is coup de theatre a common word?

coup de theatre is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for coup de theatre come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.