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Coup de grâce
 
 
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The expression coup de grâce (; "blow of mercy") means a death
Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a life organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby....
 blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature. The phrase can refer to killing civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies and with or without the consent of the sufferer. It is often used figuratively to describe the last of a series of events which brings about the end of some entity; for example: "The business had been failing for years; the coup de grâce was the sudden jump in oil prices."

Coup de grâce can also refer to the final destruction of an already sinking ship.






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The expression coup de grâce (; "blow of mercy") means a death
Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a life organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby....
 blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature. The phrase can refer to killing civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies and with or without the consent of the sufferer. It is often used figuratively to describe the last of a series of events which brings about the end of some entity; for example: "The business had been failing for years; the coup de grâce was the sudden jump in oil prices."

Coup de grâce can also refer to the final destruction of an already sinking ship. During World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
, ships crippled beyond repair were often finished off by their own escorts, or by enemy submarines. The destroyer HMS Dorsetshire
HMS Dorsetshire (40)

HMS Dorsetshire was a heavy cruiser of the County class cruiser of the Royal Navy, named after the England county . She was launched on 29 January 1929 at Portsmouth Dockyard, United Kingdom....
 torpedoed the Bismarck
German battleship Bismarck

Hide header=|Header caption=|Ship class=|Ship displacement=41,700 tonnes standard 50,900 tonnes full load|Ship length= overall waterline...
 after she had been rendered helpless by 300-400 shell hits over a period of 90 minutes.

In war times, it means shooting into the cardiac or temporal region of an already shot, but not yet dead person during a military or civilian execution. It can also refer to the beheading that follows a samurai's seppuku
Seppuku

is a form of Japanese Suicide#Ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai honor code, seppuku was used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, as a form of capital punishment for samurai who have committed serious offenses, and for reason...
.

In a classic duel
Duel

As practiced from the 11th to 20th centuries in Western societies, a duel is an engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with their combat doctrines....
 to the death, if one combatant was wounded seriously enough that they were unlikely to survive, a coup de grâce would be performed.

The French pronunciation of the phrase is , but many English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 speakers mispronounce it as . Omitting the final "s" is an example of a hyperforeignism
Hypercorrection

Hypercorrection is a linguistic phenomenon which may take any of the following forms:# an elaborate, Prescription and description based correction of common usage, often introduced in an attempt to avoid vulgarity or informality, that results in wording commonly considered clumsier than the usual, colloquialism;...
: in French, this mispronunciation sounds like coup de gras, which means "blow of fat", or cou de gras, which means "neck of fat." Furthermore, this confusion is compounded by the name "Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras

The terms "Mardi Gras" and "Mardi Gras season", in English language, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, ending on the day before Ash Wednesday....
."

See also

  • Animal euthanasia
    Animal euthanasia

    Animal euthanasia is the act of inducing humane death in an animal. Euthanasia methods are designed to cause minimal pain and distress.In domesticated animals, this process is commonly referred to by the euphemisms "lay down," "put down," "put to sleep," "put out of his/her misery," or "sent away to the farm."...
  • Euthanasia
    Euthanasia

    Euthanasia refers to the practice of ending a life in a painless manner. Many different forms of euthanasia can be distinguished, including euthanasia and human euthanasia, and within the latter, voluntary and involuntary euthanasia....
  • Firing squad
  •  Audio of "coup de grâce" by a native French speaker?,