branch
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branch noun A tributary of a stream or creek, often named after a family originally occupying its land (as Becks Branch NC, Byrds Branch TN) and sometimes so small that its flow is intermittent or seasonal; the general pattern in the Smokies from smallest to largest watercourse is spring => branch => creek => fork/prong => river. [DARE labels this usage “chiefly South, South Midland”]
1800 (in 1920 DeWitt Sevier Journal 31) (Nov 6) We discovered ... fine springs and branches on the headwaters of mile creek. 1863 Reese CW Letters (Oct 27) I want you to git A nuf of wheat if you can to sow the ground on the fur Cide of the Branch. 1937 Hall Coll (Sylva NC) A branch may have branches runnin’ into it. 1949 Kurath Word Geog East US 40 Other expressions that are used throughout the South and the South Midland are pallet, waiter, branch, and the well-known you-all ... In West Virginia ... there is a rather clear line of demarcation between the [Southern] branch and the [Midland”] run area. Here branch is regular south of the Kanawha, run to the north of it. 1966 Dakin Vocab Ohio River Valley 209 The residents of Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky rarely say anything but the branch of the South and South Midland. 1989 Matewan OHP-28 This branch used to run big all the time, had plenty of water.