Coup de grâce Coup de grâce A coup de grâce (; French for "blow of mercy") is a death blow to end the suffering of a severely wounded person or animal. It may be a mercy killing of civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the sufferer's consent. Examples of "coup de grâce" include shooting the heart or head (typically the back of the skull) of a wounded, but still living, person during an execution or by humanely killing a suffering, mortally wounded soldier, in war, for whom medical aid is not available. In pre-firearms eras the wounded were finished with
Referring expression Other types of reference recognized by linguists include "indefinite" as opposed to "definite reference", and "collective" and "distributive reference". Definite referring expressions refer to an identifiable individual or class ("The Dalai Lama"; "The Coldstream Guards"; "the student with the highest marks"), whilst indefinite referring expressions allow latitude in identifying the referent ("a corrupt Member of Parliament"; "a cat with black ears"—where "a" is to be interpreted as 'any' or 'some actual but unspecified'). Collective reference is the picking out of the members of a set as a set, whilst distributive reference is the picking out of the members of a