sluice
(slo͞os)
n.
1.
a. An artificial channel for conducting water, with a valve or gate to regulate the flow: sluices connecting a reservoir with irrigated fields.
b. 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.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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