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prettygoodwordbayou (BAI-yoo, BAI-yoh) - n., a slow-moving stream, river, marshy lake, wetland, or creek, especially a tributary of another body of water.
Often boggy or marshy, if not outright stagnant. For the recorded, I have never heard that second pronunciation, given in multiple dictionaries, but I've also not lived in the region this term is specific to, namely the lower Mississippi River basin. First recorded in the 1700s, from Cajun French bayou, earlier form bayouque, supposedly (and this is likely true, despite some evidence being problematic) from Choctaw bayuk, older form of modern Choctaw bo·k, creek/river-through-a-delta. (I'd always assumed it was from standard French, but nope.) The transmission is probably via Mobilian Jargon, a pidgin based on Choctaw and Chickasaw (both being Muskogean languages).
---L.
Often boggy or marshy, if not outright stagnant. For the recorded, I have never heard that second pronunciation, given in multiple dictionaries, but I've also not lived in the region this term is specific to, namely the lower Mississippi River basin. First recorded in the 1700s, from Cajun French bayou, earlier form bayouque, supposedly (and this is likely true, despite some evidence being problematic) from Choctaw bayuk, older form of modern Choctaw bo·k, creek/river-through-a-delta. (I'd always assumed it was from standard French, but nope.) The transmission is probably via Mobilian Jargon, a pidgin based on Choctaw and Chickasaw (both being Muskogean languages).
---L.
