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coupe

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Pronunciation

coupe1 car, carriage

Etymology

The car and the carriage are borrowed from French coupé,[2][3][4][5] short for carrosse coupé (“cut-off carriage”),[3][4][5][6][7] from the past participle of couper (“to cut”).[2][5][8] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories calls the derivation from carrosse coupé probable.[9] The carriage was a shortened berlin, with the back seat cut away.[3][5][6] The French verb is a derivative of coup (“blow”), the source of English coup,[5][4][7] which comes from Medieval Latin colpus, from Latin colaphus, from Ancient Greek κόλαφος (kólaphos, “blow, punch”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A short four-wheeled closed carriage with a seat for two inside and an outside seat for the driver: 1834, in T. Medwin's The Angler in Wales.[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

Also in 1834 the word named the front or rear compartment of a continental stagecoach,[2][3] and later, from 1853, an end compartment in a railway carriage, seated on one side only.[2] It was first applied to a closed two-door motor car in 1908, in A. Bennett's Buried Alive,[2][4][5] though Etymonline dates this use to 1897.[3] In the United States the car is often spelled coupe and pronounced in one syllable.[2][10][4] Compounds followed: coupé cabriolet, a car whose top folds down, and coupé de ville, with an enclosed passenger compartment and an open driver's seat, both from 1930 in the OED[2] and 1931 for coupé de ville in Etymonline.[3] In American Black slang a coupe was a Cadillac Coupe de Ville (1980).[11] Earlier, English had borrowed the French participle for a step in dancing (1673 in Merriam-Webster) and as a term of heraldry (1572), and it was used in fencing from 1889.[8][2][10]

Timeline

  • 1834 – a closed four-wheeled carriage for two; the front or rear compartment of a continental stagecoach.[2][3]
  • 1853 – an end compartment in a railway carriage.[2]
  • 1908 – a closed two-door car.[2][4][5] Etymonline dates this use to 1897.[3]
  • 1930 – coupé cabriolet and coupé de ville.[2]
  • 1980 – in American Black slang, a Cadillac Coupe de Ville.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A closed car with two doors, a fixed roof and usually a sloping back: They traded the old van for a sporty coupe.[7][8][2]
  2. (historical) A four-wheeled closed horse-drawn carriage with two seats inside and one outside for the driver.[7][8][2]
  3. An end compartment of a European railway carriage, with seats on one side only.[7][8][2]
  4. (historical) The front or rear compartment of a continental stagecoach.[8][2]

coupe2 dessert dish

Etymology

The dessert and its dish are borrowed from French coupe (“goblet”),[2][10][7][12] from Late Latin cuppa (“cup”),[8][13][10][14] the source also of English cup.[8][13][7] Dictionary.com takes the Late Latin word from Latin cūpa (“cask, tub, barrel”).[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

A shallow cup, bowl or glass: 1895, in a Montgomery Ward catalogue.[2][10]

Semantic evolution

From 1905, in E. Wharton's The House of Mirth, the word also named a mixture of ice cream and fruit served in such a glass, as in coupe Jacques.[2][10] Merriam-Webster also uses it for a rimless plate or a wide, shallow rimless bowl.[8]

Timeline

  • 1895 – a shallow cup, bowl or glass.[2][10]
  • 1905 – a dessert of ice cream and fruit served in a glass.[2][10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A dessert of ice cream with fruit, cream or another topping, served in a glass: a peach coupe.[7][8][2]
  2. A stemmed glass or shallow dish for serving such a dessert.[7][8][2]
  3. A rimless plate or wide, shallow rimless bowl.[8]

Usage notes

A rarer coupe, a periodic felling of trees or the area cleared, was borrowed from French coupe, "felling", in 1922.[2][10] The car is usually written coupé and pronounced in two syllables in Britain, and written coupe and pronounced in one in the United States.[7][2][10]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  14. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House