sluice
pronunciation
How to pronounce sluice in British English:
UK [slu:s]
How to pronounce sluice in American English:
US [slus]
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- Noun:
- conduit that carries a rapid flow of water controlled by a sluicegate
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- Verb:
- pour as if from a sluice
- irrigate with water from a sluice
- transport in or send down a sluice
- draw through a sluice
Word Origin
- sluice
- sluice: [14] A sluice is etymologically a device for ‘excluding’ water. The word comes via Old French escluse from Gallo-Roman *exclūsa, a noun use of the feminine past participle of Latin exclūdere ‘shut out’ (source of English exclude [14]). This was a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and claudere ‘shut’ (source of English close).=> close, exclude
- sluice (n.)
- c. 1400, earlier scluse (mid-14c.), a shortening of Old French escluse "sluice, floodgate" (Modern French écluse), from Late Latin exclusa "barrier to shut out water" (in aqua exclusa "water shut out," i.e. separated from the river), from fem. singular of Latin exclusus, past participle of excludere "to shut out" (see exclude).
- sluice (v.)
- 1590s, from sluice (n.). Related: Sluiced; sluicing.
Example
- 1. Pouring from or as if from a sluice : the sluicing rain .
- 2. Irrigate with water from a sluice .
- 3. Experts believe that this sediment will build up behind the dam , with only an unproven system of sluice gates to release it .
- 4. Running process : after the motor is started up and runs , the sluice gate begins to descend .
- 5. Yu and his colleagues ar e dispatched to sluice gates during times of drought when the conservancy has to impose a potentially life-determining judgment on supplies .