sluice Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun conduit that carries a rapid flow of water controlled by a sluicegate
    sluiceway; penstock.
  2. verb pour as if from a sluice
    sluice down.
    • An aggressive tide sluiced across the barrier reef
  3. verb irrigate with water from a sluice
    flush.
    • sluice the earth
  4. verb transport in or send down a sluice
    • sluice logs
  5. verb draw through a sluice
    • sluice water

WordNet

Sluice noun
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.
Definitions
  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 of flood gate.
  2. 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.
  3. The stream flowing through a flood gate.
  4. (Mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for washing auriferous earth.
Sluice transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Sluiced ; present participle & verbal noun Sluicing
Definitions
  1. To emit by, or as by, flood gates. R. 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. De Quincey.
  3. To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice; as, to sluice eart or gold dust in mining.

Webster 1913