Dyche

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old spelling of a trench dug into the ground to drain water or mark a boundary ; a family name borne by people of English origin
2. A dated form of the word for a long narrow channel excavated in the earth ; a surname shared by various people, notably the English football manager Sean
3. Obsolete spelling meaning a trough or excavation cut into soil for drainage ; a hereditary family name, most famously linked to the football manager Sean

Etymology: The word began as a name for the trench itself. Old English "dīc" meant a ditch, and the earth dug out of it was heaped up alongside, so the same structure was also a raised bank. Over time the word came to mean that bank as much as the hollow, which is why it can name both a channel for water and a wall of earth built to hold water back. The spelling "dyche" is an older-style variant of the more common "dyke," and the two forms share the same history. The word has cognates across the Germanic languages, most notably Dutch "dijk," which in the Netherlands means a dam or sea wall, a sense that reflects the same idea of an earthwork built to keep water out. English kept the sense of a ditch and a boundary bank, and the word remains most at home in place names and in regional English and Scots usage.

Synonyms: ditch, dike, trench