sluice

Significat

Noun

1. 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.
2. A water gate or floodgate.
3. Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
4. The stream flowing through a floodgate.
5. A long box or trough through which water flows, used for washing auriferous earth.
6. An instance of wh-stranding ellipsis, or sluicing.

Verb

1. To emit by, or as by, flood gates.
2. To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice
3. To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice.
4. To wash (down or out).
5. To flow, pour.
6. To elide the complement in a coordinated wh-question. See sluicing.

Pronunciat com a (IPA)

/sluːs/

Etimologia

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 (“I shut out, I exclude”) (English exclude). Cognate to Dutch sluis.