Sluice
Sluice , noun
[Old French escluse, French écluse, Late Latin exclusa, sclusa, from Latin excludere, exclusum, to shut out: compare Dutch sluis sluice, from the Old French. See Exclude.]
1.
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 or flood gate.
2.
Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
Each sluice of affluent fortune opened soon.
This home familiarity... opens the sluices of sensibility.
3.
The stream flowing through a flood gate.
4.
(Mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for washing auriferous earth.
Collocations (1)
Sluice gate , the sliding gate of a sluice.
Sluice , transitive verb
1.
To emit by, or as by, flood gates. [Rare] — Milton
2.
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.
3.
To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice; as, to sluice eart or gold dust in mining.