- a variation of dyke.
dike
1 Americannoun
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an embankment for controlling or holding back the waters of the sea or a river.
They built a temporary dike of sandbags to keep the river from flooding the town.
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a ditch.
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a bank of earth formed of material being excavated.
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a causeway.
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British Dialect. a low wall or fence, especially of earth or stone, for dividing or enclosing land.
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an obstacle; barrier.
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Geology.
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a long, narrow, cross-cutting mass of igneous rock intruded into a fissure in older rock.
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a similar mass of rock composed of other kinds of material, as sandstone.
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Australian Slang. a urinal.
verb (used with object)
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dikes,
present (3rd person singular)
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diked,
past participle, past
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diking
present participle
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to furnish or drain with a dike.
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to enclose, restrain, or protect by a dike.
to dike a tract of land.
noun
noun
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A body of igneous rock that cuts across the structure of adjoining rock, usually as a result of the intrusion of magma. Dikes are often of a different composition from the rock they cut across. They are usually on the order of centimeters to meters across and up to tens of kilometers long.
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See illustration at batholith
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An embankment of earth and rock built to prevent floods or to hold irrigation water in for agricultural purposes.
Usage
What else does dike mean? Dike is an extremely offensive slur for a lesbian. It has been reappropriated by some in the LGBTQ community as a label of pride and solidarity. What are some other forms of dike?dyke
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dikesimple
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dikessimple
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have dikedperfect
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has dikedperfect
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am dikingprogressive
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are dikingprogressive
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is dikingprogressive
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have been dikingperfect progressive
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has been dikingperfect progressive
Past
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dikedsimple
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had dikedperfect
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was dikingprogressive
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were dikingprogressive
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had been dikingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dike
before 900; Middle English dik ( e ), Old English dīc < Old Norse dīki; akin to ditch
Explanation
A dike is a structure made of earth or stone that's used to hold back water. If you visit the Netherlands, you can see their elaborate system of dikes, without which much of the country would be underwater. The verb dike means to enclose with a structure, like a wall or embankment, intended to hold back water. The Netherlands diked an inland sea, used pumping and other water control measures, and was able to reclaim flooded areas. The Dutch have used dikes to prevent flooding since the 12th century, and the word itself has the same roots as the Dutch word dijk.
Vocabulary lists containing dike
Western Europe - Introductory
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Western Europe - Middle School and High School
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Early Civilizations of China, Lessons 1–3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
To suggest the Dutch are clueless about combat is like suggesting they don’t know how to build a dike.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026
“And when you were up on the rock, then every crystal, crack, and ripple was endowed with indissoluble, life-saving importance, each dike and chickenhead inalienably itself.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 20, 2026
The organization will run out of money for dike maintenance in Bentiu by February, after months of some of the most severe flooding in years.
From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2025
And building the dike in Kazakhstan cut off the south part of the sea in Uzbekistan from its crucial water source.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 7, 2024
Along the river two old farmers stood in ankle-deep water, repairing the same narrow dike where we had laid out Kiowa’s body after pulling him from the muck.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
The new study examined dikes, which are narrow fractures that could theoretically serve as channels for ocean water moving upward through the ice.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
Scholz landed in the morning in the town of Verden in Lower Saxony where dikes along rivers were soaked with water and close to bursting in some parts of the state.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 31, 2023
These ecosystems, as Kavanaugh pointed out, are frequently separated from larger bodies of water by “man-made dikes or barriers” as well as “natural river berms, beach dunes, or the like.”
From Slate ● May 25, 2023
In areas where pumpjacks bob along the shoulders of the Kern River, Chevron has been shutting down wells, draining pipelines, turning off electrical power, erecting dikes and bolstering river banks with riprap.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 17, 2023
Thin strands of river-mist were hanging above the dikes, and crawling over the fields.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
The delta was once filled with vast tidal marshes but was dramatically altered as wetlands were diked, drained and converted to farmland.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2022
Lands and waters that today are paved, dammed, diked, dredged, filled and industrialized beyond recognition are increasingly bereft of salmon, game, roots, berries, plants and medicines central to Native cultures.
From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2022
For the past 150 years, the marshy area where salmon bred and fed has been dried, diked and dammed.
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2014
We have probably diked off too much of the river's active flood plain; in many cases close to 90 percent of the historic flood plain.
From Scientific American ● May 13, 2011
At the University of Virginia, one who is dressed with more than ordinary elegance is said to be diked out.
From A Collection of College Words and Customs by Benjamin Homer Hall
The Corps of Engineers has to approve the permits because work will be done near the Columbia River diking system and in and around wetlands, Bennett added.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 24, 2022
Oystermen started diking tidelands and cultivating the precious bivalves like a crop — and for a while, they prospered.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 22, 2019
"We need to repair 75 years of diking and draining, but that takes time," he said.
From US News ● Jul. 1, 2016
The Souris was ripping along at 6,610 cfs at Broadway Bridge, a higher flow than what much of the diking in the city was believed able to contain.
From Washington Times ● May 29, 2016
Given Cahokia’s engineering expertise, though, solutions were within reach: terracing hillsides, diking rivers, even moving Cahokia.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
