Definition of "fyke" [fyke]

• A long, bag-shaped fishing net held open by hoops. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A fyke is a fishnet, with long wings on each side; in shape like a nightcap with ear lappets; in mechanism like a rat-trap."
• "Barely 1,000 men here still fish for silver eel, with bag-shaped "fyke" nets or old-fashioned traps, and for glass eel with special dip nets - though glass eel fishing, centred on the rivers Severn, Wye and Parrett in the south-west, can be an exceedingly lucrative business."
• "He spoke of fyke-nets and drag-nets and warp-lines, and of eel-spearing through the ice."