different between dyke vs fyke

English

Alternative forms

• dike (standard US spelling)

Etymology 1

A variant of dike, from Northern Middle English dik and dike (“ditch”), from Old Norse díki (“ditch”). Influenced by Middle Dutch dijc (“ditch; dam”) and Middle Low German d?k (“dam”). See alsoditch.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /da?k/
• Rhymes: -a?k

Noun

dyke (plural dykes) (British spelling)

1. (historical) A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to serve as a boundary marker.
2. A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to conduct water.
3. (dialect) Any navigable watercourse.
4. (dialect) Any watercourse.
5. (dialect) Any small body of water.
6. (obsolete) Any hollow dug into the ground.
7. (now chiefly Australia, slang) A place to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory.
   • 1977, Ian Slack-Smith, "The Passing of the Twin Seater" in The Cubbaroo Tales:

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

8. An embankment formed by the creation of a ditch.
9. (obsolete) A city wall.
10. (now chiefly Scotland) A low embankment or stone wall serving as an enclosure and boundary marker.
11. (dialect) Any fence or hedge.
12. An earthwork raised to prevent inundation of low land by the sea or flooding rivers.
    • 1891, Susan Hale, The Story of Nations: Mexico, p. 100:

      The king of Texcuco advised the building of a great dike, so thick and strong as to keep out the water.

13. (figuratively) Any impediment, barrier, or difficulty.
14. A beaver's dam.
15. (dialect) A jetty; a pier.
16. A raised causeway.
17. (dialect, mining) A fissure in a rock stratum filled with intrusive rock; a fault.
18. (geology) A body of rock (usually igneous) originally filling a fissure but now often rising above the older stratum as it is eroded away.

Synonyms

• (long, narrow excavation): ditch, trench, fosse
• (small body of water): puddle, pond, pool, lakelet, mere
• (any hollow): den, cave, hole, pit
• (any embankment): bank, embankment, earthwork
• (barrier of stone or earth): bank, embankment, dam, levee, breakwater, floodwall, seawall

Derived terms

Related terms

• ditch
• dig

Translations

Verb

dyke (third-person singular simple present dykes, present participle dyking, simple past and past participle dyked)

1. (transitive or intransitive) To dig, particularly to create a ditch.
2. (transitive) To surround with a ditch, to entrench.
3. (transitive, Scotland) To surround with a low dirt or stone wall.
4. (transitive or intransitive) To raise a protective earthwork against a sea or river.
5. (transitive) To scour a watercourse.
6. (transitive) To steep [fibers] within a watercourse.

Etymology 2

Uncertain. Attested since the 1940s (in Berrey and Van den Bark’s 1942 American Thesaurus of Slang) or 1930s.

Semantic development from dyke (“ditch”) has been proposed, and some sources from the 1890s are said to record dyke as slang for "vulva" and hedge of the dyke as slang for "pubic hair", but Green's Dictionary of Slang says dyke in the latter phrase had no reference to lesbianism and Dictionary.com considers a connection unlikely.

Bull dyke / bulldike is attested earlier, in reference to women since at least the 1920s (the 29 July 1892 Decatur Daily Review in Illinois mentions a woman who "won the affections of Harvey Neal, alias 'Bulldyke'", whose gender is unclear), and bulldyker (and the practice of bulldyking) are also attested earlier, e.g. in Parke's 1906 Human Sexuality, in the speech of Philadelphians, and backcountry American blacks. Compare bulldagger, attested since around the same time and used especially by black women.

Other linguists suggested that bull dyke(r) referred to strong black women who dug dikes, or derived from bull + dick, perhaps in reference to black men.

Noun

dyke (plural dykes)

1. (slang, usually derogatory) A lesbian, particularly one with masculine or butch traits or behavior.

Usage notes

This term for a lesbian is often derogatory (or taken as such) when used by heterosexuals but is also used by some lesbians to refer to themselves positively. See reclaimed word and reappropriation for discussion.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:female homosexual

Derived terms

• bi-dyke
• troglodyke

Related terms

• bull dyke

Translations

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, "dike | dyke, n.¹" & "dike | dyke, v.¹".

Anagrams

• E.D. Ky.

Scots

Etymology

From Old English d?c

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?ik/

Noun

dyke (plural dykes)

1. A dry-stone wall usually forming a boundary to a wood, field or garden.
2. A mound of earth, stone- or turf-faced, sometimes topped with hedge planting, used as a fence between any two portions of land.
3. A hedge

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Dutch fuik (“fish trap”), from Middle Dutch vuyke, fuke. Cognate with West Frisian fûke, German Low German Fuuk.

Noun

fyke (plural fykes)

1. (fishing) A type of fish-trap consisting of tubular nets that are supported by hoops.

   Synonym: fyke net, fyke-net

Translations

See also

• fike

Middle English

Alternative forms

• fycz, fic, fike

Etymology

Inherited from Old English f?c, from Vulgar Latin *f?ca, from Latin f?cus. Doublet of fige.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fi?k(?)/

Noun

fyke (plural fykes)

1. A fig (fruit of a fig tree)

Descendants

• English: fike

References

• “f?k(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-1-3.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

fyke (present tense fyk, past tense fauk, supine foke, past participle foken, present participle fykande, imperative fyk)

1. Alternative form of fyka