dyke

1. 1

   An earthwork raised to prevent inundation of low land by the sea or flooding rivers.UK

   • The king of Texcuco advised the building of a great dike, so thick and strong as to keep out the water.
   • Serious as was the flood damage in England, the bursting of some of the dykes on the coast of Holland resulted in an even more widespread and devastating inundation.
2. 2

   A low embankment or stone wall serving as an enclosure and boundary marker.ScotlandUK

   • The Galloway Dyke / In southwest Scotland there is a local style of dry stone dyke that is now recognized as 'the Galloway dyke', although when this pattern of ^([sic]) was first developed, it was simply described as 'the sheep dyke'.'
3. 3

   A raised causeway.UK

4. 4

   A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to conduct water.UKhistorical

5. 5

   Any navigable watercourse.UKdialectal

6. 6

   Any watercourse.UKdialectal

7. 7

   Any small body of water.UKdialectal

8. 8

   A body of rock (usually igneous) originally filling a fissure but now often rising above the older stratum as it is eroded away.UK

   • Their exact relationship to the host-rock is obscure but from their texture and observed metamorphic relationship they are thought to be intrusive dykes rather than intercalations of more basic lava.
9. 9

   A place to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory.AustraliaUKslang

   • In Cubbaroo's dim distant past They built a double dyke. Back to back in the yard it stood An architectural dream in wood.
10. 10

    An embankment formed by the spoil from the creation of a ditch.UK

syn. ditch · trench · fosse · bank · embankment · earthwork

1. 1

   To dig, particularly to create a ditch.UKintransitivetransitive

   • He finds out, soon enough for his weal and his bane, that he is stronger than Nature: and right tyrannously and irreverently he lords it over her, clearing, delving, dyking, building, without fear or shame.
2. 2

   To surround with a ditch, to entrench.UKtransitive

3. 3

   To surround with a low dirt or stone wall.ScotlandUKtransitive

4. 4

   To raise a protective earthwork against a sea or river.UKintransitivetransitive

5. 5

   To scour a watercourse.UKtransitive

6. 6

   To steep (fibers) within a watercourse.UKtransitive

1. 1

   A lesbian, particularly one with masculine or butch traits or behavior.UKderogatoryoffensive

2. 2

   A non-heterosexual woman.UKbroadlyderogatory

3. 3

   A masculine woman.UKderogatoryoffensive