count coup

American  

[kaunt koo] / ˌkaʊnt ˈku /

verb (used without object)

1. (among Indigenous warriors of the Great Plains) to earn the highest honor in battle by surviving unharmed in such close proximity to an enemy as to touch them.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

count coup

Perhaps he could wound an enemy, and count coup upon him; perhaps he could face bullets or arrows to rescue a brother—— His dull eyes glinted like cut beads.

From The Plow-Woman by Eleanor Gates

It was the ambition of every Plains Indian to count coup.

From American Indians by Frederick Starr

To be the first to count coup on a fallen enemy was high honor.

From Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women by Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand) Sabin

Then there was a race between Baptiste and the Pawnee next behind him, to see which should count coup on the fallen man.

From Blackfoot Lodge Tales The Story of a Prairie People by George Bird Grinnell

She, for her part, could count "coup" to a creditable extent, and among the latest scalps which she had hung to her dainty twenty-inch girdle was that of our friend Holmes.

From The Sign of the Spider by Bertram Mitford