The expression coup de grâce (pronounced /ku də gras/) (French: /ku də ɡʁas/ "blow of mercy") means a death blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Death is the termination of the biological functions that define living Organisms It refers both to a specific 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. "

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 final destruction of an already sinking ship; during World War II, ships crippled beyond repair were often finished off by their own escorts, or by enemy submarines. Examples include the USS Wasp, the USS Lexington, and the USS Yorktown. Design Wasp was a byproduct of the Washington Naval Treaty. With the construction of and, the United States still had 15000 tons available to flesh out Construction The Lexington is named after the battle of Lexington that took place in Lexington Massachusetts in 1775 Early career Yorktown was laid down on 21 May 1934 at Newport News Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co It can also refer to the beheading that follows a samurai's seppuku. is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by Disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for Samurai.

In a classic duel to the death, if a person is wounded and not likely to recover, a coup de grâce would be performed. 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

The French pronunciation of the phrase is [ku də gras], but some English speakers sometimes mispronounce it as [ku de'gra]. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Omitting the final "s" is an example of a hyperforeignism: in French, this mispronunciation sounds like coup de gras, which means "blow of fat", or "cou de gras", which means "neck of fat. Hypercorrection is a Linguistic phenomenon which may take any of the following forms an elaborate prescriptively based correction of common "

See also

• Animal euthanasia
• Euthanasia
• Firing squad
•  Audio of "coup de grâce" by a native French speaker^{?, file}