sike
verbEtymology From Middle English siken, from Old English sīcan (“to sigh”), from Proto-West Germanic *sīkan (“to sigh”). Doublet of sigh.
1
Northern England, Archaic To sigh or sob.
sike
noun/saɪk/
Etymology From Northern Middle English sike, from Old English sīċ (see sitch), possibly also from or related to Old Norse sík; both from Proto-Germanic *sīką (“slow flowing water; trickle”). Cognate with Norwegian sik. Compare Scots sheuch.
1
Northumbria, Scotland A gutter or ditch; a small stream that frequently dries up in the summer; the marshy ground or ditch through which such a stream flows.
- The swankies lap thro' mire and syke, Wow as their heads did birr!1809, John Skinner, Amusements of Leisure Hours, or Poetical Pieces, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, page 41:
- [...] a great gathering o' their folk at the Miry-sikes, […]1820, Walter Scott, Tales of My Landlord: 2nd Series, Collectd and Arranged by Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseud.], page 6:
4 more examples
- It neither grew in syke nor ditch, Nor yet in ony sheugh;[…]1859, William Lonsdale Watkinson, William Theophilus Davison, The London Quarterly Review, page 278:
- The wind made wave the red weed on the dike. Bedoven in dankès deep was every sike;[…]1876, Rosaline Orme Masson, Three Centuries of English Poetry: Being Selections from Chaucer to Herrick, A Scotch Winter Evening in 1512, page 160:
- […] hills and mountains, moss or mure, bank or syke, sea or shore,[…]1937, Scottish History Society, Publications of the Scottish History Society:
- The march of that herding is to come from the Rispie syke to the point at Blood syke Bottom to the stone syke-head.1952 [1776], Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, Transactions and Journal of Proceedings: