sluice
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
Old French escluse (French écluse), from Late Latin exclusa, sclusa, from Latin exclūsus, form of exclūdō (“I shut out, I exclude”) (English exclude).
Cognate to Dutch sluis, from Old French.
Pronunciation [edit]
Noun [edit]
sluice (plural sluices)
- An artificial passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, as in a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow; also, a water gate or flood gate.
- Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
- Each sluice of affluent fortune opened soon. -Harte.
- This home familiarity . . . opens the sluices of sensibility. -I. Taylor.
- The stream flowing through a flood gate.
- (mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, used for washing auriferous earth.
- (linguistics) An instance of wh-stranding ellipsis, or sluicing.
Derived terms [edit]
Coordinate terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
passage for water
|
|
Verb [edit]
sluice (third-person singular simple present sluices, present participle sluicing, simple past and past participle sluiced)
- (rare) To emit by, or as by, flood gates. -Milton.
- To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; as, to sluice meadows. Howitt.
- He dried his neck and face, which he had been sluicing with cold water. -De Quincey.
- To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice; as, to sluice earth or gold dust in a sluice box in placer mining.
- To elide the C` in a coordinated wh-question
Coordinate terms [edit]
- (washing in mining): pan
Quotations [edit]
- For usage examples of this term, see the citations page.
References [edit]
- sluice in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
