sluice
Meanings
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.
- A water gate or floodgate.
- Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
- The stream flowing through a floodgate.
- A long box or trough through which water flows, used for washing auriferous earth.
- An instance of wh-stranding ellipsis, or sluicing.
verb
- To emit by, or as by, flood gates.
- To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice
- To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice.
- To wash (down or out).
- To flow, pour.
- To elide the complement in a coordinated wh-question. See sluicing.
Pronunciation
Word forms
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.
Derived words
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