sluice

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Waiting for some reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me.

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Definitions (33)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (10)

  1. noun An artificial channel for conducting water, with a valve or gate to regulate the flow: sluices connecting a reservoir with irrigated fields.
  2. noun A valve or gate used in such a channel; a floodgate: open sluices to flood a dry dock. Also called sluice gate.
  3. noun A body of water impounded behind a floodgate.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (16)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (5)

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Examples

  • Doze a sluice -- way down into that waste pocket there, so we won't clog ourselves up. —  First Lensman
  • Phrases multiplied, mingling inextricably Morgan claims thirty cents to the pan ... good creek claim ... his sluice is about ready ... a clean-up last night ... I don't believe it.... No, Sir, I wouldn't give a hundred dollars for the whole damn moose pasture.... Well, it's good enough for me.... I tell you it's rotten, the whole damn cheese.... You've got to stand in with the police or you can't get and so on and on unendingly, without coherence. —  The Trail of the Goldseekers A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse
  • Waiting for some reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me. —  Great Expectations
  • "Morgan claims thirty cents to the pan ... good creek claim ... his sluice is about ready ... a clean-up last night ... —  The Trail of the Goldseekers A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse
  • I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the house -- of wood with a tiled roof -- would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me. —  Great Expectations
 

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Sluice has been looked up 312 times, favorited twice, listed 47 times, and commented on once.

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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English scluse, from Old French escluse, from Late Latin exclūsa, from Latin, feminine past participle of exclūdere, to shut out; see exclude.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English sluce, sluse, scluse; from Middle English scluse = Middle Dutch sluys, Dutch sluis = Middle Low German sluse, Low German sluis (later G. schleuse) = Danish sluse = Swedish sluss, from Old French escluse, English écuse = Spanish esclusa, from Middle Latin exclusa (also, after Roman, sclusa), a sluice, flood-gate, prop, adjective (sc. aqua, water shut off), feminine of exclusus, shut off, past participle of excludere, shut off: see exclude. Cf. close, recluse, secluse.
  2. Early modern English also sluce; from sluice, n.
 

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/slus/
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