Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Bayou

Bayou ({not transcribed}) , noun

[North Am. Indian bayuk, in French spelling bayouc, bayouque.]

An inlet from the Gulf of Mexico, from a lake, or from a large river, sometimes sluggish, sometimes without perceptible movement except from tide and wind. [Southern United States]
A dark slender thread of a bayou moves loiteringly northeastward into a swamp of huge cypresses. — G. W. Cable