putsch means A coup d'état; an illegal effort to forcibly overthrow the current government. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 81 out of 100.
Why this word is great
PUTSCH — [Noun] A sudden and violent attempt to overthrow a government, typically orchestrated by a small, conspiratorial faction. Borrowed from German Putsch, from Alemannic German Putsch ("knock, thrust, blow"), of imitative origin. Unlike a coup d'état—which implies the cold, surgical seizure of a state by its own institutional elite—or a revolution—which suggests the tectonic, popular upheaval of an entire social order—a putsch is the desperate lunge of a fevered cabal. It is the scrape of furniture barricading a ministerial door, the crackle of a single radio station broadcasting martial music, and the conspirators’ stunned faces as they realize they have seized a building but not a country—a brittle gamble on the idea that audacity alone can rewrite the law.
noun
- A coup d'état; an illegal effort to forcibly overthrow the current government.“Afterward, the ringleaders of the failed putsch were publicly executed.”