A “cri de coeur” (KREE duh KUR) – French for “cry of the heart” – is an anguished cry of distress or indignation.
Example (as used by Joyce Carol Oates in The New York Times): “The tersely titled Prep is not a brilliantly corrosive adolescent cri de coeur like J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye… .”
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