Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Dike

Dike (dī) , noun

[Old English dic, dike, diche, ditch, Anglo-Saxon dīc dike, ditch; akin to Dutch dijk dike, German deich, and prob. teich pond, Icelandic dīki dike, ditch, Danish dige; perh. akin to Greek tei^chos (for qei^chos) wall, and even English dough; or perh. to Greek ti^fos pool, marsh. Compare Ditch.]

1.
A ditch; a channel for water made by digging.
Little channels or dikes cut to every bed. — Ray
2.
An embankment to prevent inundations; a levee.
Dikes that the hands of the farmers had raised... Shut out the turbulent tides. — Longfellow
3.
A wall of turf or stone. [Scottish]
4.
(Geology) A wall-like mass of mineral matter, usually an intrusion of igneous rocks, filling up rents or fissures in the original strata.

Dike , transitive verb

[Old English diken, dichen, Anglo-Saxon dīcian to dike. See Dike.]

1.
To surround or protect with a dike or dry bank; to secure with a bank.
2.
To drain by a dike or ditch.

Dike , intransitive verb

To work as a ditcher; to dig. [Obsolete]
He would thresh and thereto dike and delve. — Chaucer