dyke
noun
dike.
dyke
1 American
[dahyk]
/ daɪk /
noun
dyked,
dyking
dyke
2
American
[dahyk]
/ daɪk /
Also
dike
noun
Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.
dyke
1
British
/ daɪk /
noun
-
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
-
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
-
informal
-
a lavatory
-
( as modifier )
a dyke roll
-
verb
-
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
Dyke
2
British
/ dɑɪk /
noun
dyke
3
British
/ daɪk /
noun
Sensitivity
The terms dyke and bull dyke are used with disparaging intent and are perceived as insulting. However, they have been adopted as positive terms of self-reference by young or radical lesbians and in the academic community. In the mainstream gay community, lesbian and gay remain the terms of choice.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dyke
First recorded in 1940–45; earlier in form bulldike (with a variant bulldagger ); of obscure origin; claimed to be a shortening of morphodyke (variant of morphodite, a reshaping of hermaphrodite ), though morphodyke is more likely a blend of morphodite and a preexisting dyke; other hypothesized connections, such as with diked out or dike “ditch,” are dubious on semantic grounds
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:
The former Environment Secretary Steve Barclay has questioned in Parliament why there has been no prosecution yet, after hundreds of dead fish were found floating in a dyke.
From BBC ● Mar. 20, 2026
I was already out of the closet, a little baby dyke, and I remember telling my sister, who’s now married to Phil — I was like, “Look at those two.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2024
As I did that, I realized, “Oh, these are all people working inside what I consider dyke culture.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 22, 2023
Join us for the annual rally focused on political activism — featuring dyke-identified speakers and performers — followed by a march around the North Capitol Hill neighborhood representing the wide spectrum of dyke identity.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 1, 2023
They rattled nine miles in a borrowed car to the quarters that squatted so close that only the dyke separated them from great, sprawling Okechobee.
From "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Dealers are, “not going to sit back and let mom-and-pop services take business from them,” Dyke said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Instead, he seemed a good, flustered company man anxiously determined to be normal—like Dick Van Dyke, perhaps, or Bob Newhart—while remaining very funny indeed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Dyke set the England team two targets: reach the semis of Euro in 2020 and win the World Cup in 2022.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
By then, Moore’s starring role in “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was already leading to greater things, including founding MTM Enterprises with then-husband Grant Tinker.
From Salon ● Jun. 20, 2026
Mr. Van Dyke leaned back in his chair, the springs creaking discordantly.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
By the 1950s, all but 8% of the bay’s 77,000 hectares of marshes had been dyked off or filled for human uses such as agriculture, rubbish dumps, sewage-treatment plants, navy bases, airports and salt ponds.
From Nature ● Oct. 8, 2018
The French essential poetry seems to me to flow out into prose works, into their school of romances, and to be least poetical when dyked up into rhythm.
From The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II by Sir Frederic G. (Frederic George) Kenyon
We came, and found Nature omnipotent, but we challenged her––drove the steel road down the great cañon to bring us provisions in, dyked the swamp meadows, ploughed up the forest, and rent the hills.
From The Greater Power by W. Herbert Dunton
The' was only one man in it, but he was dyked out in Sunday clothes, an' purt' nigh froze to death.
From Happy Hawkins by Robert Alexander Wason
Bit by bit it will get dyked and breakwatered.
From Memories and Studies by Henry James
A description of their methods of dyking and constructing aboideaux, written in 1710, is interesting to those who are doing the same work now.
From The Chignecto Isthmus and its first settlers by Howard Trueman
At the mouth of Cedar Creek there are about twenty acres of overflowed land which could easily be reclaimed by dyking.
From Official Report of the Exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands for the Government of British Columbia by Newton H. (Newton Henry) Chittenden
Cairo has since been built into a considerable town by dyking out the rivers, and was an important naval and military point during the Civil War....
From With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 1 by Various
So his army laid down its guns, and took up the spade, and went largely into the ditching and dyking business.
From Siege of Washington, D.C., written expressly for little people by F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
That means we can do nothing there until next winter, and must continue the dyking all summer.
From Thurston of Orchard Valley by W. Herbert Dunton
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
