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- Dictionarycoup d'état/ˌkuː deɪˈtɑː/
noun
- 1. a sudden, violent, and unlawful seizure of power from a government; a coup: "a military coup d'état brought down the government"
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noun
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; lit. 'stroke of state'), or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means. By one estimate, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, half of which were successful. Wikipedia