sluice
/sluːs/
noun
- 1
An artificial passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, for example in a canal lock or a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow.
- 2
A water gate or floodgate.
- 3
Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
- 4
The stream flowing through a floodgate.
- 5
A long box or trough through which water flows, used for washing auriferous earth.
- 6
An instance of wh-stranding ellipsis, or sluicing.
verb
- 1
To emit by, or as by, flood gates.
- 2
To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice
“to sluice meadows”
- 3
To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice.
- 4
(more generally) To wash (down or out).
- 5
To flow, pour.
- 6
To elide the C` in a coordinated wh-question. See sluicing.
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