sluice
/sluːs/ noun, verb
Forms sluices sluicing sluiced
- noun An artificial passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, for example in a canal lock or a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow.
- noun A water gate or floodgate.
- noun Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
- noun The stream flowing through a floodgate.
- noun (mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, used for washing auriferous earth.
- noun (linguistics) An instance of wh-stranding ellipsis, or sluicing.
- verb (transitive, rare) To emit by, or as by, flood gates.
- verb (transitive) To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice
- verb (transitive) To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice. “to sluice earth or gold dust in a sluice box in placer mining”
- verb (transitive, more generally) To wash (down or out).
- verb (intransitive) To flow, pour.
- verb (linguistics) To elide the complement in a coordinated wh-question. See sluicing.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English sluse, alteration of scluse, from Anglo-Norman escluse (“sluice, floodgate”), from Late Latin exclusa (“extrusion, gate”), from Latin exclūsus, form of exclūdō (“to shut out, to exclude”) (English exclude). Cognate to Dutch sluis.
Webster’s 1913
- noun An artifical passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, as in a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow; also, a water gate of flood gate.
- noun Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
- verb To emit by, or as by, flood gates. [R.] Milton.
- verb To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; as, to sluice meadows.
Etymology [OF. escluse, F. écluse, LL. exclusa, sclusa, from L. excludere, exclusum, to shut out: cf. D. sluis sluice, from the Old French. See Exclude.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “sluice”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details