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Added 10 October 2026

sluice

/sluːs/ noun

Latin root: exclusa Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about sluice at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

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.
A water gate or floodgate.
Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.

verb

To emit by, or as by, flood gates.
To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice
To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice.
to sluice earth or gold dust in a sluice box in placer mining

Origin

From Middle English sluse, alteration of scluse, from Anglo-Norman escluse (“sluice, floodgate”), from Late Latin exclusa (“extrusion, gate”), from Latin exclūsus, form of exclūdō (“to shut out, to exclude”) (English exclude). Cognate to Dutch sluis.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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