Definition of "coup de main" []

• A sudden action undertaken to surprise an enemy. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "PÈrier had expelled him from France in 1831, he and a few officers from Strasburg attempted, but failed in, a coup de main (1836)."
• "The first attempt to take Epinal in a coup de main had failed."
• "By his brilliant coup de main at Yelnya the German commander had precipitated Timoshenko's counterattack and thereby drawn the infantry of Army Group Centre across the Dnieper and into the battle, but at the same time the Panzers had remained in action, and so the very factors which had kept the centre of gravity in his hands for those three extra weeks now made it inevitable that there would be a pause."