Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An inclosure with gates at each end, forming a connection between the upper and lower levels of a canal, enabling boats to pass from one to the other.
  • noun See lock. In the accompanying cut e represents the inclosure technically called a lock-chamber. A boat having entered this chamber from g′ , the gates at g′ are closed and those at g opened; the Water in e, being thus reinforced with part of the water beyond g, rises to the same level with it, and the boat proceeds.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And, also, what might be called the “rhythm” of the port — two tides every twenty-four hours, which timed the movements of the little group of men concerned with the canal-lock, and of the fishermen he had watched passing with their baskets.

    Death of a Harbormaster Simenon, Georges 1942

  • It made the muskeg look like a gargantuan cake-batter, in which it seemed to float as dignified and imperturbable as a schooner in a canal-lock.

    The Prairie Mother Arthur Stringer 1912

  • If it had not been for his striking appearance and for the strange, wild tales he told of his lonely life, he would have reminded me of the old canal-lock tenders at home.

    The Young Forester Zane Grey 1905

  • As a child she had once walked in her sleep, had gone forth from the house, and had, before she was awakened, crossed the narrow footing of a canal-lock, a thing her nervousness would not allow her to do at other times.

    A Life's Morning George Gissing 1880

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