bayou

noun

bay·​ou ˈbī-(ˌ)ü 

-(ˌ)ō

1

: a creek, secondary watercourse, or minor river that is tributary to another body of water

2

: any of various usually marshy or sluggish bodies of water

Synonyms

• tributary

Examples of bayou in a Sentence

a small creek that is the bayou of a larger stream

Recent Examples on the Web

Adding to the anxiety is the fact that reported bayou deaths in the Houston area have more than doubled compared to 2023, with at least 25 deaths being confirmed so far this year by Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, the medical examiner. —Dalia Faheid, CNN Money, 27 Oct. 2025

The manor’s theme, which has included both a bayou and an asylum, typically changes annually. —Laura Kiniry, Popular Science, 22 Oct. 2025

The 1-5 New Orleans Saints take a trip out of the bayou up to the Windy City to battle the 3-2 Chicago Bears. —Tyler Geis, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 Oct. 2025

From the outside, the Harris County Jail might be mistaken for a high-end condo, with walls of windows that overlook the bayou in downtown Houston. —The New Yorker, New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Louisiana French, earlier bayouque, perhaps borrowed from early Choctaw *bayok, whence Choctaw bo·k "creek, river"

Note: A Choctaw source for the word has been claimed since Albert Gatschet, A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1884), p. 113 (" … the Cha'hta word for a smaller river, or river forming part of a delta, is báyuk, contraction bōk, and occurs in Boguechito, Bok'humma, etc."). However, bayuk is apparently not attested in 19th/20th century Choctaw, and the notion that Choctaw bo·k, "creek, river," is a contraction of bayuk is simply Gatschet's conjecture. The earliest attestation of the word is apparently in the memoirs of the French carpenter André Pénicaut, writing in 1723: "A cinq lieues plus loin, en tournant tousjours à la gauche sur le lac, on trouve une eau dormante, que les Sauvages appellent Bayouque" - "Five leagues farther, always turning to the left along the lake shore, one comes to a stagnant body of water that the Indians call bayouque"; see Pierre Margry, editor, Découvertes et Établissements des Français dans l'Ouest et dans le Sud de l'Amérique Septentrionale (1614-1754): Mémoires et Documents Originaux, 5. partie (Paris, 1887), p. 385 (translated by Richebourg McWilliams in Fleur de Lys and Calumet, Being the Pénicaut Narrative of French Adventure in Louisiana, University of Alabama Press, 1981 [1953]). It should be noted that Pénicaut, who was resident in Louisiana from 1699 to 1721, was not the most reliable recorder of what the local Indians actually spoke: he also avers that maringouin "mosquito, gnat" and sagamité "stew or soup made with hominy" are the words used for these things by the local Indians, though both are in fact imports into North American French from other parts of the New World (Margry, op. cit., pp. 384, 386). However insecure the Choctaw etymology of bayouque, it is accepted in volume 14 ("Southeast") of the Handbook of North American Indians (Smithsonian Institution, 2004), according to which the ethnic name Bayacchyto (recorded in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville) "seems to be early Choctaw *bayok-čítoʔ 'big bayou' … which in its later form bo·k-čítoʔ is preserved in the name of Bogue Chitto, a tributary of the Pearl River … " (p. 175).

First Known Use

1763, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

bayou

noun

bay·​ou ˈbī-ō 

ˈbī-ü

: a marshy or slowly flowing body of water (as a stream or inlet)