Sluice (?), n. [OF. escluse, F. 'ecluse, LL. exclusa, sclusa, from L. excludere, exclusum, to shut out: cf. D. sluis sluice, from the Old French. See Exclude.]
1.
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 of flood gate.
2.
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.
3.
The stream flowing through a flood gate.
4. Mining
A long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for washing auriferous earth.
Sluice gate, the sliding gate of a sluice.
© Webster 1913.
Sluice, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sluiced (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Sluicing (?).]
1.
To emit by, or as by, flood gates.
[R.]
Milton.
2.
To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; as, to sluice meadows.
Howitt.
He dried his neck and face, which he had been sluicing with cold water.
De Quincey.
3.
To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice; as, to sluice eart or gold dust in mining.
© Webster 1913.