DCHP-1 Online
coulee [< Cdn F coulée] Prairies 
1 n. See 1962 quote.
- 1804 (1911) At sunset removed a little higher upon the coulee to a better place for the feeding of our horses, where we kept them tied to pickets all night.
- 1857 (1863) At sunset they fell upon the young Crees, surrounded them in the Coulee in which the men encamped, and killed 17 of them on the spot. . . .
- 1962 The dry bed of a stream when deep is a "gulch" or "coulee," its inclined sides distinguishing it from a canyon, the sides of which are perpendicular.
2 n. See quote.
- c1902 (1912) On the high rolling plains, hostiles could be descried at a distance, coming over the horizon head and top first like the peak of a sail, or emerging from the "coolies"--dried sloughs--like wolves from the earth.
- 1804 (1911) At sunset removed a little higher upon the coulee to a better place for the feeding of our horses, where we kept them tied to pickets all night.