sluice

Meaning

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

Synonyms

lock

🔒

watergate

floodgate

flush

water gate

penstock

gutter

dam

sluiceway

sluice down

drain

ditch

rinse

spout

flood-gate

dip

wash

🧽

sluice gate

wash down

conduit

chute

outlet

flume

outpour

cypher

enumerate

ebb

count

🔢

fall

figure

cavetto

drop

drench

coulisse

numerate

lower

drainage ditch

canal

boards

lour

let down

let

discharge

compute

leach

launder

jet

number

🔢

hush

depress

Translations

écluse

chiusa

Schleuse

sluis

esclusa

🔒

compuerta

schutsluis

sas

spui

cataracta

cateratta

sassluis

ausströmen

lavare

🧽

Pronounced as (IPA)

/sluːs/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: sluse

Cognate with Dutch: sluis

In summary

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.