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dyke

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Pronunciation

dyke1 embankment, ditch, wall

Etymology

The embankment or ditch is inherited from Middle English dik, also dyke,[2][3] inherited from Old English dīc (“trench, ditch; earthwork, bank”),[4][5][2][6] from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz.[5][7] It is the same word as dike; the OED calls the spelling with y very frequent but not etymological.[4] The Old English word gave both this word and ditch, and the OED finds the conditions under which the two forms arose unclear;[4] Etymonline calls this the northern form and the other the southern one.[5] The Germanic cognates include Old Saxon dīk (“mound, dam”), Old Frisian dīk (“dike, mound, dam”), Dutch dijk (“dam”), Middle High German tīch (“pond, fishpond”), German Teich (“pond”), Old Norse díki (“ditch, fishpond”), Swedish dike (“ditch”) and Danish dige (“dam, embankment”);[4][5][2] their meanings range between a hollow dug out and a mound thrown up from it.[4] The Shorter Oxford and Hoad give the Old Norse word, or dík, as a source of the Middle English word, Hoad adding that the ditch sense is probably of Norse origin,[8][9] and the AHD and the Oxford Dictionary of English also name Old Norse;[10][11] the Gersum project, however, finds Norse input possible but not necessary.[3] The embankment sense was probably influenced by Middle Low German dīk (“dam”) and Middle Dutch dijc (“ditch, pool, mound, dam”), through drainage works in the Low Countries.[9][8][11][2] Etymonline and Barnhart trace the Germanic word to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- (“to pierce; to fix, fasten”), comparing Latin fīgō (“to fix, fasten”) and Lithuanian diegti (“to prick”);[5][2][12] Kroonen derives it, through a Pre-Germanic form, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeiǵʰ-nó-,[7] and Orel calls it of unknown origin.[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English, a trench or ditch dug in the ground, in charters from the 9th century on;[4][2] Bosworth–Toller also records it for the bank formed by throwing out the earth from a ditch.[6] Barnhart dates the Middle English form to about 1250.[14][2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline suggests a development from sticking a spade into the ground to digging and so to the product of digging.[5] The word held both "something dug out" and "something built up":[15] in Old English it already meant a channel for water as well as a ditch,[4] and in Middle English it could mean any pit, cave or den (to about 1500).[4] The bank thrown up from a ditch is recorded from 1487,[4][5] a city wall or fortification from about 1400 to 1600,[4] and in Scotland a low wall of turf or stone from about 1425; in some dialects it came to mean a hedge or any fence (1567).[4][16] The sense of a bank or dam built against the sea or floods, which arose earlier in Dutch and Frisian, is recorded in English from the 1630s,[5][4] and Barnhart dates the flood-barrier sense to the 1500s.[2] Johnson (1755) gave both "a channel to receive water" and "a mound to hinder inundation".[17] The phrase to put one's finger in the dyke comes from the story of a Dutch boy who saved his town from flooding, popularized by Mary Mapes Dodge's Hans Brinker (1865).[15] In geology it has meant a wall-like intrusion of igneous rock since 1835,[5][16] and in slang, a lavatory, from 1923.[4][18] The English Dialect Dictionary records many local forms, such as deek in Lincolnshire and East Anglia and dick in Kent and Sussex.[19]

Timeline

  • 847 – Old English dīc, a trench or ditch (Barnhart's date).[2]
  • c. 1250 – Middle English dik, a ditch, wall.[2]
  • before 1325 – any hollow dug in the ground, a pit or den (obsolete by 1500).[4]
  • c. 1400 – the wall of a city, a fortification (obsolete by 1600).[4]
  • c. 1425 – in Scotland, a low wall of turf or stone.[4]
  • 1487 – a bank formed by the earth thrown out of a ditch.[4]
  • 1642 – an embankment against the sea or floods;[4] Etymonline dates the sense to the 1630s.[4][5]
  • 1835 – geology, a vertical intrusion of igneous rock.[5]
  • 1923 – slang, a lavatory.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An embankment or dam built to hold back the sea or a river and prevent flooding; a levee.[16][12][4]
  2. A ditch or artificial watercourse, as for drainage.[16][12][4]
  3. A bank of earth thrown up beside a ditch.[16][4]
  4. (Scotland) A wall, especially a dry-stone wall.[16][4][12]
  5. A barrier or obstruction.[16][12]
  6. (geology) A wall-like body of igneous rock that has forced its way into cracks in older rock.[16][5]
  7. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) A lavatory.[16][4]

Verb

  1. To protect, enclose or drain land with a dyke.[16][12]

Word family

  • diker

dyke2 lesbian (slang)

Etymology

The slang word for a lesbian is of unknown origin.[12][8][11][20] The OED, which revised the entry in 2018, thinks it probably a shortening of bull dyke, since bull-dyking and the earliest forms of bulldagger are recorded before it;[4] Etymonline notes bulldyker, one who engages in lesbian activities, from 1906,[5] and Green's Dictionary of Slang also finds the longer form older.[18] Another theory takes it as a shortening of morphodyke or morphadike, variants of morphodite, a reshaping of hermaphrodite;[4][5][20][18] the OED objects that this would make the word develop apart from the very similar longer forms,[4] and Dictionary.com thinks the morphodyke form more likely a blend of morphodite with an existing dyke.[20] Green's Dictionary of Slang also suggests dyked down, dressed up,[18] but Dictionary.com finds links with “diked out” or with the ditch word doubtful on semantic grounds.[20]

Earliest recorded meaning

A lesbian: 1931, in New Broadway Brevities, an American publication.[4][12][5] Green's Dictionary of Slang has a memoir written about 1930 (published in 1981) that refers to the late 19th century.[18]

Semantic evolution

The word was American at first.[5][18] From the 1940s it was also used of any woman thought masculine in appearance, a sense the OED now finds less common,[4][18] and it soon had an adjective use (by 1956) and a verb, to have lesbian sex (1941).[18] The Oxford Dictionary of English dates the short form to the 1940s, after the earlier bulldyke.[11] Long used as an insult, it has been taken up by younger or radical lesbians and in academic writing as a positive term of self-reference.[20]

Timeline

  • 1906 – bulldyker, one who takes part in lesbian activities.[5]
  • c. 1930 – dyke, a lesbian, in a memoir published in 1981.[18]
  • 1931 – a lesbian, in New Broadway Brevities.[4][12]
  • 1941 – verb, to have lesbian sex.[18]
  • 1942 – a masculine woman.[18]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (slang, often offensive; also used approvingly by lesbians themselves) A lesbian, especially one with a masculine manner.[12][4][8][20]
  2. (slang, offensive) A woman thought to look masculine.[4][8]

Adjective

  1. (slang) Of or relating to lesbians.[18]

Word family

  • dykey
  • bull dyke

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster labels the word for a lesbian usually offensive.[12] Dictionary.com notes that dyke and bull dyke are used with disparaging intent and taken as insults, but that they have been adopted as positive terms by young or radical lesbians and in academic writing, while gay and lesbian remain the usual terms in the wider community.[20] In the sense of an embankment, dike is the more usual American spelling and dyke the British.[16][12]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  13. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  14. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  15. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  20. ^ a b c d e f g Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House