GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English

Found 2 definitions

1.       
   Sluice , n. [OF. escluse, F. écluse, LL. exclusa, sclusa, from L. excludere, exclusum, to shut out: cf. D. sluis sluice, from the Old French. See Exclude.]
   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.
   1913 Webster
   Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
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   Each sluice of affluent fortune opened soon.
   Harte.
   
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   This home familiarity . . . opens the sluices of sensibility.
   I. Taylor.
   
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   The stream flowing through a flood gate.
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   (Mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for washing auriferous earth.
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   Sluice gate, the sliding gate of a sluice.
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2.       
   Sluice, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sluiced ; p. pr. & vb. n. Sluicing .]
   To emit by, or as by, flood gates. [R.]
   Milton.
   
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   To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; as, to sluice meadows.
   Howitt.
   
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   He dried his neck and face, which he had been sluicing with cold water.
   De Quincey.
   
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   To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice; as, to sluice eart or gold dust in mining.
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