north. dial. Also 5–9 byke, 6 byik, byk, 8 beik. [Etymology unknown. The sense ‘bees’ nest’ is the original; hence a conjecture that it represents an OE. béoc, contr. from *béowíc ‘bee-dwelling,’ but the phonetic repr. of that would have been beke, beek. The sense ‘building’ (4) is apparently erroneous; some, assuming it to be the original, compare big, bike with dig, dike.]
1. A nest of wasps, hornets, or wild bees, as distinct from the hive or skep of domestic bees. Also, the whole nestful of bees; a swarm.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 76. Suetter … þon hony o bike.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst. 325. Wormes shalle in you brede as bees dos in the byke.
a. 1500. MS. Cott. Calig., A. ij. 109 (Halliw.). A byke of waspes bredde in his nose.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), II. 271. Ane tod was ouirset with ane bike of fleis.
a. 1758. Ramsay, Poems (1844), 89. Like bumbees frae their bykes.
1790. Burns, Tam O’Shanter. As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke, When plundering herds assail their byke.
1883. Black, Black Bothy, v. They had thoroughly dug out that wasps’ byke.
2. fig. A place likened to a bees’ nest, e.g., a subterranean retreat or ‘hole,’ a well-filled storehouse.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VIII. iv. 26. Ȝone fendlych hole … A hellis byke, quhair sonnis beme nevyr schane.
1806. R. Jamieson, Pop. Ballads, I. 293 (Jam.). Nocht but a house-wife was wantin’ To plenish his weel foggit byke.
3. fig. Applied contemptuously to a swarm of people; a teeming crowd, a ‘crew.’
1552. Lyndesay, Monarche, 5803. In that court sall cum mony one Off the blak byik of Babilone.
1785. Burns, Jolly Beggars. The glowrin’ byke.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xii. A bonny bike there’s o’ them! Ibid. (1818), Rob Roy, xxvi. A bike o’ the maist lawless unchristian limmers that ever disturbed a douce, quiet … neighbourhood.
† 4. ? ‘A building, a habitation.’ Jamieson. Obs. (But the quotation may mean ‘populous center,’ or ‘swarm of men.’)
c. 1440. Golagros & Gaw., II. viii. Mony burgh, mony bour, mony big bike; Mony kynrik to his clame, cumly to knaw.
† 5. (See quot.) Obs. or local.
1771. Pennant, Tour Scotl. (1794), 202. The corn is thrashed out and preserved in the chaff in bykes, which are stacks in shape of bee-hives, thatched quite round.
