dyke
see also: Dyke
Etymology 1
Dyke
Etymology
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.001
see also: Dyke
Etymology 1
A variant of dike, from Northern Middle English dik and dike ("ditch"), from Old Norse díki.
Pronunciation- IPA: /daɪk/
dyke (plural dykes) (British spelling)
- (historical) A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to serve as a boundary marker.
- A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to conduct water.
- (dialect) Any navigable watercourse.
- (dialect) Any watercourse.
- (dialect) Any small body of water.
- (obsolete) Any hollow dug into the ground.
- (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.
- An embankment formed by the spoil from the creation of a ditch.
- A wall, especially (obsolete, outside, heraldry) a masoned city or castle wall.
- (now, chiefly, Scotland) A low embankment or stone wall serving as an enclosure and boundary marker.
- (dialect) Any fence or hedge.
- 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.
- (figuratively) Any impediment, barrier, or difficulty.
- A beaver's dam.
- (dialect) A jetty; a pier.
- A raised causeway.
- (dialect, mining) A fissure in a rock stratum filled with intrusive rock; a fault.
- (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
- 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)
- (transitive or intransitive) To dig, particularly to create a ditch.
- (transitive) To surround with a ditch, to entrench.
- (transitive, Scotland) To surround with a low dirt or stone wall.
- (transitive or intransitive) To raise a protective earthwork against a sea or river.
- (transitive) To scour a watercourse.
- (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.
Noundyke (plural dykes)
- (slang, usually pejorative, offensive) A lesbian, particularly one with masculine or butch traits or behavior.
- (slang, usually pejorative, loosely, offensive) A non-heterosexual woman.
Dyke
Etymology
- As an English surname, from the noun dyke.
- As a Dutch - surname, Americanized from Dijk (also compare Dyck).
- A village in Lincolnshire, England.
- Surname.
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.001
