Dyke vs Bulwark - What's the difference?
dyke | bulwark |
(Australia, slang) A toilet.
(UK) A ditch (rarely also refers to similar natural features, and to one natural valley, Devil's Dyke, Sussex, due to a legend that the devil dug it).
(UK, mainly S England) An earthwork consisting of a ditch and a parallel rampart.
(British) An embankment to prevent inundation, or a causeway.
(UK, mainly Scotland and N England) A mound of earth, stone- or turf-faced, sometimes topped with hedge planting, or a hedge alone, used as a fence.
(UK, mainly Scotland and N England) A dry-stone wall usually forming a boundary to a wood, field or garden.
(British, geology) A body of once molten igneous rock that was injected into older rocks in a manner that crosses bedding planes.
.
A defensive wall or rampart.
A defense or safeguard.
* Blackstone
A breakwater.
(nautical) The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
To provide protection of defense for something.
As nouns the difference between dyke and bulwark
is that dyke is or dyke can be (slang|pejorative) a lesbian, particularly one who appears macho or acts in a macho manner this word has been reclaimed, by some, as politically empowering (see usage notes) while bulwark is a defensive wall or rampart.As a verb bulwark is
to fortify something with a wall or rampart.dyke
English
(wikipedia dyke)Etymology 1
Variant of (dike).Noun
(en noun)- 1977 , In Cubbaroo's dim distant past
They built a double dyke.
Back to back in the yard it stood
An architectural dream in wood''
— Ian Slack-Smith, ''The Passing of the Twin Seater'', from ''The Cubbaroo Tales'', 1977. Quoted in ''Aussie Humour , Macmillan, 1988, ISBN 0-7251-0553-4, page 235.
Etymology 2
; various theories suggested. Attested US 1942, in Berrey and Van den Bark’s American Thesaurus of Slang''."dike, dyke, n.3" ''The Oxford English Dictionary . 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford UP. 4 Apr. 2000Synonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* bulldykeReferences
Anagrams
* ----bulwark
English
Noun
(en noun)- The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence, the floating bulwark of our island.