dyke
1dyke
2or dike
- a contemptuous term used to refer to a lesbian.
Origin of dyke
2Usage note
dike
1or dyke
- 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.
- a ditch.
- a bank of earth formed of material being excavated.
- a causeway.
- British Dialect. a low wall or fence, especially of earth or stone, for dividing or enclosing land.
- an obstacle; barrier.
- Geology.
- a long, narrow, cross-cutting mass of igneous rock intruded into a fissure in older rock.
- a similar mass of rock composed of other kinds of material, as sandstone.
- Australian Slang. a urinal.
- to furnish or drain with a dike.
- to enclose, restrain, or protect by a dike: to dike a tract of land.
Origin of dike
1Examples from the Web for dyke
Contemporary Examples of dyke
Did you not cheer when she socked him after he called her a “dyke”?
‘The Good Wife’: Has Season 4’s Kalinda Storyline Gone too Far?Jace Lacob, Maria Elena Fernandez
October 15, 2012
He will put his finger in the dyke, and the fragile mess of an auto industry will eke through the next few months.
Historical Examples of dyke
And he laughed again, a laugh that seemed to Dyke to be calling him a fool.
Captain BloodRafael Sabatini
Dyke was a shrewd, sarcastic dog in his way, but he had no chance with me.
A Day's RideCharles James Lever
What on airth are you doin' there in the dyke, little missy?
TerryRosa Mulholland
That is the very infirm legend that is told and sold at the Dyke.
Highways & Byways in SussexE.V. Lucas
Mrs. Dyke was a practical woman and talked in a practical way.
The Right KnockHelen Van-Anderson
dyke
1dike
- an embankment constructed to prevent flooding, keep out the sea, etc
- a ditch or watercourse
- a bank made of earth excavated for and placed alongside a ditch
- Scot a wall, esp a dry-stone wall
- a barrier or obstruction
- a vertical or near-vertical wall-like body of igneous rock intruded into cracks in older rock
- Australian and NZ informal
- a lavatory
- (as modifier)a dyke roll
- civil engineering an embankment or wall built to confine a river to a particular course
- (tr) to protect, enclose, or drain (land) with a dyke
Word Origin for dyke
dyke
2dike
- slang a lesbian
Word Origin for dyke
Dyke
- Greg (ory). born 1947, British television executive; director-general of the BBC (2000–04)
dike
- a variant spelling of dyke 1
Word Origin and History for dyke
1931, American English, perhaps a shortening of morphadike, dialectal garbling of hermaphrodite; but bulldyker "engage in lesbian activities" is attested from 1921, and a source from 1896 lists dyke as slang for "the vulva."
[T]he word appears first in the long forms, bulldiker and bulldyking, both used in the 1920s by American blacks. No African antecedents have been found for the term, however, which leads to the possibility that this is basically just another backcountry, barnyard word, perhaps a combination of BULL and DICK. [Rawson]
dike
Old English dic "trench, ditch; an earthwork with a trench; moat," from Proto-Germanic *dik- (cf. Old Norse diki "ditch, fishpond," Old Frisian dik "mound, dam," Middle Dutch dijc "mound, dam, pool," Dutch dijk "dam," German Deich "embankment"), from PIE root *dheigw- "to pierce, fasten" (cf. Sanskrit dehi- "wall," Old Persian dida "wall, stronghold, fortress," Persian diz).
At first "an excavation," later (late 15c.) applied to the resulting earth mound; a sense development paralleled by cognate forms in many other languages. This is the northern variant of the word that in the south of England yielded ditch (n.).
dike
- 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. See illustration at batholith.
- An embankment of earth and rock built to prevent floods or to hold irrigation water in for agricultural purposes.