Word.ws English Dictionary

putting one's finger in the dyke

putting one's finger in the dyke is the present participle and gerund of put one's finger in the dyke.

Meaning of put one's finger in the dyke

Verb

put one's finger in the dyke (third-person singular simple present puts one's finger in the dyke, present participle putting one's finger in the dyke, simple past and past participle put one's finger in the dyke)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To attempt to temporarily stop or stem an impending disaster, particularly when the effort is too small to fully address the scale of the problem.

Questions about putting one's finger in the dyke

What is putting one's finger in the dyke the present participle and gerund of?
Putting one's finger in the dyke is the present participle and gerund of put one's finger in the dyke.

Words near putting one's finger in the dyke in the dictionary

  1. putting one's best foot forward
  2. putting one's cards on the table
  3. putting one's ducks in a row
  4. putting one's feet up
  5. putting one's finger in a hole
  6. putting one's finger in the dyke
  7. putting one's finger on
  8. putting one's fist to
  9. putting one's foot down on
  10. putting one's foot down upon
  11. putting one's foot in it

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putting one's finger in the dyke (page history and authors); put one's finger in the dyke (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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