sluice

Pronunciation: /sluːs/

The English word “sluice” has 12 meanings listed here.

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.

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.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “sluice” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.