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Dike or dyke?

In American English write dike; in British and Commonwealth English, dyke. dike is a noun meaning “US standard spelling of dyke”; dyke is a noun meaning “An earthwork raised to prevent inundation of low land by the sea or flooding…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) dyke is about 3.3 times as common as dike.

dikeordyke

What is the difference between dike and dyke?

dikedyke
Part of speechnoun, verbnoun, verb
Meaning

UKAn earthwork raised to prevent inundation of low land by the sea or flooding rivers

ScotlandUKA low embankment or stone wall serving as an enclosure and boundary marker

UKTo dig, particularly to create a ditch

Examplenone recordednone recorded
Formsdikesdykes
Pronunciation/daɪk//ˈdaɪ̯k/ /ˈdʌɪ̯k/ /ˈdɜɪ̯k/
RegionUSUK
In writingabout once in every 1 million words2.3 times per million words

Sources: dike and dyke in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Every current meaning of dike and dyke

dike

  1. 1

    noun USUS standard spelling of dyke

  2. 2

    verb USUS standard spelling of dyke

  3. 3

    noun Alternative form of deck: (US dialect slang, obsolete) A well-dressed man

  4. 4

    verb slangTo cut or remove using dikes

  5. 5

    noun slangContraction of diagonal cutters

  6. 6

    noun Alternative form of dyke, Alternative form of deck: (slang, usually derogatory) a masculine woman; a lesbian

dyke

  1. 1

    noun UKAn earthwork raised to prevent inundation of low land by the sea or flooding rivers

  2. 2

    verb UKTo dig, particularly to create a ditch

  3. 3

    noun UKderogatoryoffensiveslangvulgarA lesbian, particularly one with masculine or butch traits or behavior

  4. 4

    noun ScotlandUKA low embankment or stone wall serving as an enclosure and boundary marker

  5. 5

    verb UKTo surround with a ditch, to entrench

  6. 6

    noun UKderogatoryoffensiveslangvulgarA non-heterosexual woman

  7. 7

    noun UKA raised causeway

  8. 8

    verb ScotlandUKTo surround with a low dirt or stone wall

Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.

Which is more common, dike or dyke?

dike appears about once in every 1 million words; dyke 2.3 times per million words.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How many people search dike vs dyke?

“dike vs dyke” is searched about 60 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.

Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.

The words