Has anyone heard of this? Over the weekend a friend was reading the historical novel "Arundel," and came across frequent references to a guzzle -- clearly a noun -- and it seems to mean a river that flows through a lake, but one that can be seen at low tide -- or so it seemed to him. We can't find a definition along these lines, or for that matter, any definitions of guzzle as a noun, although we don't have an OED.

Our curiosity is firing on all cylinders and I'm hoping someone here can help.

The specific conditions may be rare enough, a freshwater lake so close to the ocean that is is affected by tides with a river flowing through, that it may be a word coined and used only by the locals. I don't know the novel, was it written a long time ago or a new work about old times?

PS welcome.

The book was written a few years ago but it's about events in Maine at the time of the American Revolution. My friend was reading it at his house on the coast of Maine (what we call "You Are There" reading) which sits on a cove with big tides. As he read, he would look up and see the retreating water and in the mud, two deep channels. We think these must have been the guzzles the book refers to but as you say, these are not all that commonly observed. We went straight to the dictionary -- print as well as electronic -- to no avail.

guzzle, n.
1 now dialect : a small stream often flowing through a marsh
2 dialect : THROAT; often : ADAM's apple

Citation format for this entry:

"guzzle." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002.

Welcome, Pula. Your "guzzle" is a puzzler! We've got a couple of experts here who might have a clue.

edit: Yikes! Pipped by one of the experts! :-)

This is what I found: http://www.diclib.com/cgi-bin/d1.cgi?l=en&base=webster&page=showid&id=45546
An entirely different meaning, and more related to its verb. :0)

since there seems to be some skepticism as to the def'n I gave from W3(!?), here is something from The Sailor's Illustrated Dictionary which is even more to the point:

guzzle n. A small channel leading into flats that are exposed at low water.

-joe (debauched) friday

I wasn't trying to show skepticism, silly sensitive sage, merely that I'd found something different... Isn't that what this board is all about?!? :0)

Thanks team!
BTW -- I see that I misspoke in phrasing the original question: I said "lake" and I really didn't mean that since damn few lakes have tides . . .
Now I wonder how I can work this into a conversation?

What you're talking about is an estuary situation. We have a similar thing near here but not called a guzzle, just a channel.
Google map of Trent Water estuary at Bridport
From the above satellite image taken at high tide you can see the "guzzles" as ribbons of darker fast flowing water. The car ferries come in on these channels, but sometimes they get stuck on the sandbanks in between.
In the picture below of the same place, the tide is out leaving only the deep channels.

I was wondering how the lake managed to fill up enough during low tides to be fresh water. The tidal flats are much easier to visualize.
edit for afterthought: the connection to throat makes sense.