dyke vs wire

dyke

noun
  • Any fence or hedge. 

  • An embankment formed by the creation of a ditch. 

  • A body of rock (usually igneous) originally filling a fissure but now often rising above the older stratum as it is eroded away. 

  • An earthwork raised to prevent inundation of low land by the sea or flooding rivers. 

  • A raised causeway. 

  • Any small body of water. 

  • Any navigable watercourse. 

  • A beaver's dam. 

  • Any impediment, barrier, or difficulty. 

  • A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to serve as a boundary marker. 

  • A lesbian, particularly one with masculine or butch traits or behavior. 

  • A non-heterosexual woman. 

  • Any watercourse. 

  • A long, narrow hollow dug from the ground to conduct water. 

  • A jetty; a pier. 

  • A place to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory. 

  • A fissure in a rock stratum filled with intrusive rock; a fault. 

  • A low embankment or stone wall serving as an enclosure and boundary marker. 

verb
  • To dig, particularly to create a ditch. 

  • To surround with a ditch, to entrench. 

  • To scour a watercourse. 

  • To steep [fibers] within a watercourse. 

  • To surround with a low dirt or stone wall. 

  • To raise a protective earthwork against a sea or river. 

wire

noun
  • A fence made of usually barbed wire. 

  • Any of the system of wires used to operate the puppets in a puppet show; hence, the network of hidden influences controlling the action of a person or organization; strings. 

  • A piece of such material; a thread or slender rod of metal, a cable. 

  • A knitting needle. 

  • Metal formed into a thin, even thread, now usually by being drawn through a hole in a steel die. 

  • A telecommunication wire or cable. 

  • An electric telegraph; a telegram. 

  • A hidden listening device on the person of an undercover operative for the purposes of obtaining incriminating spoken evidence. 

  • A deadline or critical endpoint. 

  • A metal conductor that carries electricity. 

  • A finish line of a racetrack. 

  • A wire strung with beads and hung horizontally above or near the table which is used to keep score. 

  • The slender shaft of the plumage of certain birds. 

  • A covert signal sent between people cheating in a card game. 

verb
  • To send a message or monetary funds to another person through a telecommunications system, formerly predominantly by telegraph. 

  • To place (a ball) so that the wire of a wicket prevents a successful shot. 

  • To fasten with wire, especially with reference to wine bottles, corks, or fencing. 

  • To set or predetermine (someone's personality or behaviour, or an organization's culture) in a particular way. 

  • To string on a wire. 

  • To add (something) into a system (especially an electrical system) by means of wiring. 

  • To snare by means of a wire or wires. 

  • To install eavesdropping equipment. 

  • To make someone tense or psyched up. See also adjective wired. 

  • To connect, involve or embed (something) deeply or intimately into (something else, such as an organization or political scene), so that it is plugged in (to that thing) (“keeping up with current information about (the thing)”) or has insinuated itself into (the thing). 

  • To add or connect (something) into a system as if with wires (for example, with nerves). 

  • To equip with wires for use with electricity. 

How often have the words dyke and wire occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )