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. 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.

Synonyms

lock

🔒

flush

floodgate

watergate

water gate

gutter

dam

penstock

ditch

sluice down

drain

sluiceway

rinse

spout

conduit

dip

wash

🧽

wash down

outpour

flood-gate

chute

outlet

flume

sluice gate

figure

get down

go down

groove

gush

hush

jet

launder

leach

let

let down

lour

lower

number

🔢

numerate

outflow

overfall

pan

pan off

pan out

😡

posit

put down

race

raceway

rack

reckon

reducer

runway

scour

set

slide

slideway

sluice valve

tap

flush down

trim down

trough

wash up

waterspout

waterways

weir

wet all over

work out

canal lock

drain hole

head gate

lock gate

sluice-way

flow table

defervesce

ebb off

ebb out

weir waste

surplus-weir

bye-wash

bye channel

diver-sion cut

ablution

restriction chock

bathe

boards

boil down

calculate

canal

cavetto

cipher

come down

compute

coulisse

count

🔢

cypher

debouch

decline

decrease

depress

discharge

drainage ditch

drench

drop

ebb

enumerate

fall

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.