coup de foudre love

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A sudden unexpected event, especially an emotional one; love at first sight.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French coup de foudre.

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Examples

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Comments

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  • Colpo di fulmine in Italian.

    January 1, 2009

  • And how does it translate into English? (The internet is not very clear on answering the question.)

    January 1, 2009

  • "Stroke of lightning" = love at first sight.

    January 1, 2009

  • Prolagus is right (and we also say "a bolt of lightning"), but you do not necessarily need to translate this expression. Although not common, the phrase coup de foudre, which is found in English dictionaries, could be used as it is in a sophisticated English text just as we use other French expressions (e.g. pièce de la résistance, coup de grâce, par excellance) in English.

    January 1, 2009

  • The Guardian used it today in connection with Harold Pinter and a poem he wrote for his wife Antonia Fraser and his first meeting her. It is here

    I didn't know what foudre meant.

    January 1, 2009

  • “Ms. Hunter first told the tale of her campaign coup de foudre (“a magnetic force”) and the resulting daughter, now 2, in an interview in the April issue of GQ that was illustrated with sexy pin-up shots of Ms. Hunter lying on a bed in pearls, a white shirt and no pants.”

    The New York Times, One Woman’s ‘Truth’: Rielle Hunter Talks to Oprah, by Alessandra Stanley, April 29, 2010

    April 30, 2010

  • Collage.

    September 27, 2011

  • Nice find, bilby.

    September 27, 2011

  • "Painful for the publisher, who shells out a fortune in the hope of a recoup that rarely occurs; painful for the writer, who hasn't bargained for the inflated expectations that follow adulation; and painful for the reader, whose coup de foudre is unlikely to survive the second date."

    June 29, 2015