Dike

dike vt.

To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire from a computer or a subroutine from a program. A standard slogan is "When in doubt, dike it out". (The implication is that it is usually more effective to attack software problems by reducing complexity than by increasing it.) The word `dikes' is widely used among mechanics and engineers to mean `diagonal cutters', esp. the heavy-duty metal-cutting version; it also refers to a kind of wire-cutters used by electronics techs. To `dike something out' means to use such cutters to remove something. Indeed, the TMRC Dictionary defined dike as "to attack with dikes". Among hackers this term has been metaphorically extended to informational objects such as sections of code.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Dike (?), n. [OE. dic, dike, diche, ditch, AS. dc dike, ditch; akin to D. dijk dike, G. deich, and prob. teich pond, Icel. dki dike, ditch, Dan. dige; perh. akin to Gr. (for ) wall, and even E. dough; or perh. to Gr. pool, marsh. Cf. Ditch.]

1.

A ditch; a channel for water made by digging.

Little channels or dikes cut to every bed. Ray.

2.

An embankment to prevent inundations; a levee.

Dikes that the hands of the farmers had raised . . . Shut out the turbulent tides. Longfellow.

3.

A wall of turf or stone.

4. Geol.

A wall-like mass of mineral matter, usually an intrusion of igneous rocks, filling up rents or fissures in the original strata.

© Webster 1913.

Dike, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Diked (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Diking.] [OE. diken, dichen, AS. dician to dike. See Dike.]

1.

To surround or protect with a dike or dry bank; to secure with a bank.

2.

To drain by a dike or ditch.

© Webster 1913.

Dike, v. i.

To work as a ditcher; to dig.

He would thresh and thereto dike and delve. Chaucer.

© Webster 1913.