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(), n.[OF. escluse, F. cluse, 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 or 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) A long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for washing auriferous earth. Sluice gate, the sliding gate of a 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. スポンサード リンク
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