bayou

plural bayous · alternative obsolete buyou · alternative obsolete byo

1. A slow-moving, often stagnant creek or river.

   You natural persons old and young! / You on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi! / You friendly boatmen and mechanics! you roughs!

   1892, Walt Whitman, “A Leaf for Hand in Hand”, in Leaves of Grass […], Philadelphia, Pa.: David McKay, publisher, […], →OCLC, page 109

2. A swamp; a marshy (stagnant) body of water.

   At that time I had no staff officer who could be trusted with that duty. In the woods, at a short distance below the clearing, I found a depression, dry at the time, but which at high water became a slough or bayou.

   1886, Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, volume 2

plural Bayous

1. A surname.