sluice

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English

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EnglishWikipediahas an article on:
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Etymology

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FromMiddle Englishsluse,alteration ofscluse,fromAnglo-Normanescluse(“sluice, floodgate”),fromLate Latinexclusa(“extrusion, gate”),fromLatinexclūsus,form ofexclūdō(“I shut out, I exclude”)(Englishexclude). Cognate toDutchsluis.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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sluice(pluralsluices)

  1. Anartificialpassageforwater,fitted with avalveorgate,for example in acanallockor amillstream,for stopping or regulating the flow.
  2. A water gate orfloodgate.
  3. Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
    • 1693,[William] Congreve,The Old Batchelour, a Comedy.[…],2nd edition, London:[…]Peter Buck,[…],→OCLC,Act V,page45:
      At leaſt, I'm ſure I can fiſh it out of her. She's the verySluceto her Lady's Secrets;—'Tis but ſetting her Mill agoing, and I can drein her of 'em all.
    • 1767,Walter Harte,Eulogius: Or, The Charitable Mason:
      Eachsluiceof affluent fortune open'd soon.
    • 1832,[Isaac Taylor],Saturday Evening.[…],London: Holdsworth and Ball,→OCLC:
      This home familiarity[…]opens thesluicesof sensibility.
  4. The stream flowing through a floodgate.
  5. (mining)A long box or trough through which water flows, used for washingauriferousearth.
  6. (linguistics)An instance ofwh-strandingellipsis,orsluicing.

Coordinate terms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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sluicing at a mine

sluice(third-person singular simple presentsluices,present participlesluicing,simple past and past participlesluiced)

  1. (transitive,rare)To emit by, or as by, flood gates.
    • 1667,John Milton,“Book I”, inParadise Lost.[…],London:[…][Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC;republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…],London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC,lines700–704:
      Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared, / That underneath had veins of liquid fire /Sluicedfrom the lake, a second multitude / With wondrous art founded the massy ore, / Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion-dross.
  2. (transitive)To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice
    • 1855,William Howitt,Land, Labour and Gold; or, Two Years in Victoria:
      Nine - mile Creek has been dug out again and again, and has beensluicedthree times
    • 1861,Thomas Hughes,chapter XIII, inTom Brown at Oxford‎[1],London: Macmillan & Co.:
      […]he dried his neck and face, which he had beensluicingwith cold water.
    • 1993,Paul Theroux,Millroy the Magician,page61:
      Millroy often described his kidneys—how he flushed them out. His lungs—the way he hyperventilated them. His heart—how he got it pumping,sluicingits gates and chambers.
    • 2000,Laurel E. Fay, chapter 7, inShostakovich: A Life,Oxford University Press, page120:
      Many years later, in 1953, Shostakovich summarized his dissatisfactions with the competition more bluntly: "Rimsky-Korsakov groomed, waved, andsluicedMusorgsky with eau de cologne. My orchestration is crude, in keeping with Musorgsky. "
  3. (transitive)To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice.
    tosluiceearth or gold dust in asluice boxinplacermining
  4. (transitive,more generally)Towash(downorout).
  5. (intransitive)Toflow,pour.
    • 1932,Robinson Jeffers,“Thurso's Landing”, inThe Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers‎[3],New York: Random House, page311:
      In the trough behind the white wave / Helen shook her dark head, the watersluicedfrom her shoulders / And rose-tipped breasts.
    • 1934,George Orwell,chapter 23, inBurmese Days‎[4]:
      Out of sight of the houses he took off his clothes and let the rainsluicedown on his bare body.
    • 1980,Peter De Vries,chapter 12, inConsenting Adults, or The Duchess Will Be Furious,Penguin, pages185–6:
      these are often my thoughts as my partner or my vis-a-vis spoons a berry into her mouth and I imagine it—see and hear it being chewed, the red juice running from its bursting pulp over her tongue, mingling with her saliva, slipping through the crevices between her teeth beforesluicingdown her throat and into her bloodstream.
    • 1986,Tanith Lee,Delirium's Mistress,New York: Daw Books, Book Two, Part Two, Chapter 6, p. 240:
      The huge things which had already careered into flight, they were enormous slothful sacks of billowing skin, and where the lightsluicedover their bodies, they glimmered acid-blue and bronze.
  6. (linguistics)To elide the complement in a coordinatedwh-question.Seesluicing.

Coordinate terms

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  • (washing in mining):pan

Derived terms

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Translations

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Quotations

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References

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Anagrams

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