Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Sluice?

\Sluice\, n. [OF. escluse, F. ['e]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.