Sc. and north. dial. [a. ON. kaup-a to buy, bargain, barter, exchange, Gothic kaupôn to traffic, trade, buy and sell, OSax. côpôn, OHG. choufôn, OE. céapian: see CHEAP v. A northern word, the senses of which run parallel to those of the cognate COPE from LG., of which it is often viewed as a mere dialectal variant.]
† 1. trans. To buy; fig. to abye, pay for, suffer for. Obs.
c. 1300. Havelok, 1800. ‘No,’ quodh on, ‘þat shaltou coupe,’ And bigan til him to loupe.
2. To exchange, barter.
c. 1610. Sir J. Melvil, Mem. (1683), 2. He had been couped from hand to hand, sometimes kept against his will as a captive.
1674. Ray, N. C. Words (1691), 18. Coup, to exchange or swap; Horse coupers, Horse-buyers.
1808. Jamieson, Coup, cowp, to exchange, to barter.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., To Coup, to exchange. ‘Will you coup seats with me?’… To have the ‘couping word,’ the last or decisive word which shall fix the bargain or exchange.
1863. in Robson, Bards of Tyne, 356. There’s Billy the Barber for coupin’ see cliver.
Mod. Sc. I’ll coup knives with you.
