[Prob. a corruption of Fr. boyau gut.] The name given (chiefly in the southern States of N. America) to the marshy off-shoots and overflowings of lakes and rivers.
1818. Cobbett, Resid. U. S. (1822), 273. Johnson’s Ferry, a place where a Bayou (Boyau) of the Wabash is crossed. This Bayou is a run out of the main river, round a flat portion of land.
1847. Longf., Ev., II. iii. 51. How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel’s boat on the bayous?
