A variant of dike, from Northern Middle English dik and dike ("ditch"), from Old Norse díki.

ditch.

• IPA: /daɪk/

dyke (plural dykes) (British spelling)

1. (historical) A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to serve as a boundary marker.
2. A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to conduct water.
3. (dialect) Any navigable watercourse.
4. (dialect) Any watercourse.
5. (dialect) Any small body of water.
6. (obsolete) Any hollow dug into the ground.
7. (now, chiefly, Australia, slang) A place to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory.
   • 1977, Ian Slack-Smith, “The Passing of the Twin Seater”, in The Cubbaroo Tales:

     In Cubbaroo's dim distant past
     They built a double dyke.
     Back to back in the yard it stood
     An architectural dream in wood.

8. An embankment formed by the spoil from the creation of a ditch.
9. A wall, especially (obsolete, outside, heraldry) a masoned city or castle wall.
10. (now, chiefly, Scotland) A low embankment or stone wall serving as an enclosure and boundary marker.
11. (dialect) Any fence or hedge.
12. An earthwork raised to prevent inundation of low land by the sea or flooding rivers.
    • 1891, Susan Hale, The Story of Nations: Mexico, page 100:

      The king of Texcuco advised the building of a great dike, so thick and strong as to keep out the water.

13. (figuratively) Any impediment, barrier, or difficulty.
14. A beaver's dam.
15. (dialect) A jetty; a pier.
16. A raised causeway.
17. (dialect, mining) A fissure in a rock stratum filled with intrusive rock; a fault.
18. (geology) A body of rock (usually igneous) originally filling a fissure but now often rising above the older stratum as it is eroded away.

• (long, narrow excavation) ditch, trench, fosse
• (small body of water) puddle, pond, pool, lakelet, mere
• (any hollow) den, cave, hole, pit
• (any embankment) bank, embankment, earthwork
• (barrier of stone or earth) bank, embankment, dam, levee, breakwater, floodwall, seawall

• ditch
• dig

• French: fossé
• German: Graben
• Italian: fosso
• Portuguese: trincheira
• Russian: сточная канава

• French: digue
• German: Deich
• Italian: diga, argine, barriera, terrapieno
• Portuguese: dique
• Russian: да́мба
• Spanish: dique

• German: Gesteinsgang
• Italian: dicco
• Spanish: dique

dyke (dykes, present participle dyking; simple past and past participle dyked)

1. (transitive or intransitive) To dig, particularly to create a ditch.
2. (transitive) To surround with a ditch, to entrench.
3. (transitive, Scotland) To surround with a low dirt or stone wall.
4. (transitive or intransitive) To raise a protective earthwork against a sea or river.
5. (transitive) To scour a watercourse.
6. (transitive) To steep [fibers] within a watercourse.

Other linguists suggested that bull dyke(r) referred to strong black women who dug dikes, or derived from bull + dick, perhaps in reference to black men.

dyke (plural dykes)

1. (slang, usually pejorative, offensive) A lesbian, particularly one with masculine or butch traits or behavior.
2. (slang, usually pejorative, loosely, offensive) A non-heterosexual woman.

• See Thesaurus:female homosexual

• French: gouine
• German: Kampflesbe
• Portuguese: sapatão
• Russian: кобёл

• As an English surname, from the noun dyke.
• As a Dutch - surname, Americanized from Dijk (also compare Dyck).

1. A village in Lincolnshire, England.
2. Surname.