coup de grâce

plural coups de grâce · alternative coup de grace · alternative coup-de-grace

1. A final blow or shot given to kill a wounded person or animal.

   After we had row'd, or rather driven about a League and a Half, as we reckon'd it, a raging Wave, Mountain-like, came rolling a-ſtern of us, and plainly bad us expect the Coup-de-Grace.

   1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 50

   2 more examples

   The expression of his face was an appeal; his eyes were full of prayer. […] For what, indeed? For that which we accord to even the meanest creature without sense to demand it, denying it only to the wretched of our own race: for the blessed release, the rite of uttermost compassion, the coup de grâce.

   1889, Ambrose Bierce, The Coup de Grâce

   […] they just went "Right, activate radar, hello everybody, we can see you, you can't see us", and plastered everything in 14-and-16-inch gunfire until everything was broken, burning, and not able to fire back, and then they popped out for the coup de grâce.

   2019 March 6, Drachinifel, 30:36 from the start, in The Battle of Samar (Alternate History) - Bring on the Battleships!, archived from the original on 04 Jul 2022

2. broadlyfigurativelyA remarkable finishing action.