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
Sensitive Note
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 prospect now is that not just his business, but his home on the other side of the dyke that protects the village from the water, could be lost.
From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2026
HVA teams found poor dyke maintenance, uncleaned riverbeds and overlapping roles in flood defence management, its CEO Miltiadis Gkouzouris told Reuters.
From Reuters ● Nov. 21, 2023
I was the little junior dyke at Lesbian Tide with Jeanne Córdova, who had a huge influence on me.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2023
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
The solution is to build a dyke with floodgates—sliding panels that can be closed to seal off the opening—across the mouth of the river.
From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland
He is the first director-general since Greg Dyke in 2000 to take on the role having not been a former BBC employee.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
I’m like, “I’m not Dick Van Dyke, so I don’t know who you’re impersonating.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 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
Polymarket said it cooperated with the investigations into Spagnuolo and Van Dyke and hailed their arrests as vindication for its blockchain-based model.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
Diggory's Dyke was a deep cut between two chalk Downs—high, green hills, where a thin layer of green grass and reddish earth covered the chalk, and there was scarcely soil enough for trees.
From "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman
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
She had been buried in the shore field, where a square space had been dyked off in the centre for a burial lot because the church was then so far away.
From Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
Perhaps these quadrupeds are as numerous in the vicinity of Philadelphia as elsewhere, as I have never examined a stream of fresh water, dyked meadow, or mill-dam, hereabout, without seeing traces of vast numbers.
From Rambles of a Naturalist by John D. Godman
SO within a while they saw a tower as white as any snow, well matchecold all about, and double dyked.
From Le Mort d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Sir Thomas Malory
The shore, inside along the Texelsdiep, is dyked; on the outside, along the North Sea, it is beset with dunes.
From Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 by Bartlett Burleigh James
By dyking and pumping, certain wise men had changed ten acres, of sand and heath, into pasture and land for plowing.
From Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks by William Elliot Griffis
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
With milling, dyking and general farming, there was work at Prospect to keep all the members of the family busy, besides a large force of hired help.
From The Chignecto Isthmus and its first settlers by Howard Trueman
Still, you see, he's rash; we have an example in his dyking plan, and I would not like my money squandered.
From Partners of the Out-Trail by Harold Bindloss
The latter stream has an extensive delta of tide land, fifty or sixty acres of which could 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
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.
