Category:Sluice

Sluice, n. Etym: [of. escluse, f. écluse, ll. exclusa, sclusa, from L. excludere, exclusum, to shut out: cf. D. 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 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)

Defn: a long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for Washing auriferous earth. Sluice gate, the sliding gate of a sluice.

Sluice Sluice, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sluiced; p. pr. & vb. n. Sluicing.]

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.