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Webster's Dictionary (1865)

2 entries under this word

Sluice

Sluice, n.

noun

n. [D. sluis, Dan. sluse, Sw. slus, L. Ger. slüse, M. H. Ger. slûze, N. H. Ger. schleuse, O. Fr. escluse, N. Fr. écluse, Sp. esclusa, L. Lat. exclusa, scluse, from Lat. excludere, exclusum, to shut out.]

Sense 1. An artificial passage for water fitted with a sliding valve or gate, as in a mill-stream, for stopping or regulating the flow.

Sense 2. Hence, any opening; that from which any thing flows; a source of supply.

Each sluice of affluent fortune opened soon. Harte.

It is this home familiarity... that opens the sluices of sensibility. L. Taylor.

Sense 3. The stream which flows through a flood-gate.

Sense 4. Hence, any stream, or any thing regarded as flowing in a stream.

A screw press with a central vertical screw and braced frame presses down on a stack of material.

Slūice, v. t.

verbtransitive

[imp. & p. p. SLUICED (slūst); p. pr. & vb. n. SLUICING.]

  1. To emit by floodgates. [Rare.] Milton.
  2. To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; to overwhelm; as, to sluice meadows. Howitt.

He dried his neck and face, which he had been sluicing with cold water. De Quincey.