count coup

present singular third person counts coup · participle present counting coup · participle past counted coup · past counted coup

1. UShistoricalintransitiveTo win prestige in battle by performing an act of bravery in the face of the enemy (such as touching him and escaping unharmed), a ritual of the Plains Indians of North America.

   dǐ ki, v. t., to strike, to whip, to "count coup."

   [1873, Washington Matthews, “dǐ ki”, in Grammar and Dictionary of the Language of the Hidatsa (Minnetarees, Grosventres of the Missouri). With an Introductory Sketch of the Tribe (Shea’s Library of American Linguistics; ser. 2, no. 1), New York, N.Y.: Cramoisy Press, →OCLC, page 80, column 1

   5 more examples

   Sitting Bull, on horseback, with his brother behind him, counts "coup" on the soldier, and adds a new feather to his war bonnet and variety to the color of his legging fringes.

   1876 July 29, Porte Crayon [pseudonym; David Hunter Strother], “Sitting Bull.—Autobiography of the Famous Sioux Chief.”, in Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, volume XX, number 1022 (supplement), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 627, column 2

   No Sioux may wear an eagle's tail-feather unless he has counted a coup, or stroke, upon an enemy, dead or alive.

   1915, Charles A[lexander] Eastman (Ohiyesa), “The Language of Feathers and Ceremonial Dress”, in Indian Scout Talks: A Guide for Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and Company, →OCLC, pages 127–128

   A small band of Indians had ridden onto this irresistible opportunity and had counted coup with the whites' own unguarded guns.

   1954, David Lavender, Bent’s Fort: A Historical Account of the Adobe Empire that Shaped the Destiny of the American Southwest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, →OCLC; Bent’s Fort, Bison Book edition, Lincoln, Neb.; London: University of Nebraska Press, March 1972, →ISBN, page 90

   Only a damn fool counts coup on a kill he ain't sure of. That hombre could have us under his gun this very minute.

   1994, Ralph Compton, “Prologue”, in The Shawnee Trail (The Trail Drive Series; 6), New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Paperbacks, →ISBN, page 2

   I told him what I had done, how I had counted coup in a Pottawattomie, and he shook hands and said that he too had counted coup and that he was going to wear a head ornament.

   1999, Sam Blowsnake, “I Take a Trip to Nebraska”, in Paul Radin, editor, Crashing Thunder: The Autobiography of an American Indian, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 153