DCHP-1 Online

dike dyke. Maritimes

• 1 † n. an earthwork embankment equipped with aboiteaus to protect the land from the high tides of the Bay of Fundy.

  See also: aboiteau  

  • 1876  The river . . . in 1810, was again closed by a good dyke, with substantial sluices. . . .
  • 1889  With remarkable industry the Acadians reclaimed from the sea by dikes many thousands of fertile acres . . . and on the sea meadows, at one time, grazed as many as sixty thousand head of cattle.

• 2 n. the fertile sea meadows protected by a dike (def. 1).

  See also: dike(d) land(s)  

  • 1835  (1838)  ". . . The Deacon has a hundred acres of dyke."
  • 1957  In everyday speech, we make no distinction between the dykes and the dyked lands, but call them both dykes.