sluice (slūs)
n.

1. 1. An artificial channel for conducting water, with a valve or gate to regulate the flow: sluices connecting a reservoir with irrigated fields.
   2. A valve or gate used in such a channel; a floodgate: open sluices to flood a dry dock. Also called sluice gate.
2. A body of water impounded behind a floodgate.
3. A sluiceway.
4. A long inclined trough, as for carrying logs or separating gold ore.

v., sluiced, sluic·ing, sluic·es.

v.tr.

1. To flood or drench with or as if with a flow of released water.
2. To wash with water flowing in a sluice: sluicing sediment for gold.
3. To draw off or let out by a sluice: sluice floodwater.
4. To send (logs, for example) down a sluice.

v.intr.
To flow out from or as if from a sluice.

[Middle English scluse, from Old French escluse, from Late Latin exclūsa, from Latin, feminine past participle of exclūdere, to shut out. See exclude.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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