The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.]
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.
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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. 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.
Sluice gate, the sliding gate of a sluice.
Wiktionary
alt. 1 A portal which may be opened or closed to allow or prevent the passage of water through a man-made channel. 2 (context figuratively English) Something which restrains or releases a substantial volume—a flood—of activity, emotion, etc. n. 1 A portal which may be opened or closed to allow or prevent the passage of water through a man-made channel. 2 (context figuratively English) Something which restrains or releases a substantial volume—a flood—of activity, emotion, etc.
Usage examples of "sluice gate".
The loggers let water into it through a sluice gate in the dam on a lake or a pond, and of course the water runs downhill.
Taking a deep breath, he carried it to the sluice gate and wedged it between the gate on the left and the steel rod that supported it.
The flooding, the damage and the deaths that would inevitably result from the destruction of the sluice gate of Holland were incalculable.
Just last night Nabber found a sluice gate that leads under the wall.
The waterfall above Casdoe's house wove its silver columns before my eyes, and I remembered the Vatic Fountain of the House Absolute, and the rush of water from the cliff top in Thrax when I opened the sluice gate to flood the Vincula.