Sikes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small stream or boggy ditch, a term used in northern English dialect ; a family name borne by a brutal thief in Dickens's novel Oliver Twist
2. Small watercourses or marshy channels found in northern England and Scotland ; a surname given to a violent criminal character in Dickens's Oliver Twist
3. Rivulets or damp hollows, a dialect word from northern Britain ; a surname best known from a menacing housebreaker in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist

Etymology: "Sikes" is the plural of "sike", a word for a small stream or rivulet, chiefly in northern England and Scotland. It comes from Old English "sīċ", which meant a trickle or slow-flowing water, and it is related to Old Norse "sík" and to the Scots "sheuch", a ditch or drain. The same root gives "sitch" and, more distantly, shows up in Norwegian "sik". The plural simply counts several of these watercourses, so a Yorkshire walker crossing a moor might pass a dozen of them in a morning. A separate, unrelated "sike" also exists. In Middle English, "siken" meant to sigh, from Old English "sīcan", and it is a doublet of "sigh", meaning the two words come from the same source but took different routes into English. The two words have nothing to do with flowing water, despite the matching spelling.