sluice

noun

\ˈslüs

Definition of sluice

(Entry 1 of 2)

1a : an artificial passage for water (as in a millstream) fitted with a valve or gate for stopping or regulating flow

b : a body of water pent up behind a floodgate

2 : a dock gate : floodgate

3a : a stream flowing through a floodgate

b : a channel to drain or carry off surplus water

4 : a long inclined trough usually on the ground especially : such a contrivance paved usually with riffles to hold quicksilver for catching gold

sluice

verb

sluiced; sluicing

Definition of sluice (Entry 2 of 2)

transitive verb

1 : to draw off by or through a sluice

2a : to wash with or in water running through or from a sluice

b : to drench with a sudden flow : flush

3 : to transport (logs) in a sluice

intransitive verb

: to pour as if from a sluice

Synonyms Example Sentences Learn More about sluice

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Synonyms for sluice

Synonyms: Verb

flush, irrigate, rinse, wash, wash out

Examples of sluice in a Sentence

Verb

he sluiced the gutters with lots of water in order to make sure they were clear

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun

Water that sluices through the dike during the wet season may be enough to bring some fish farms back to what was once the main part of the lake, but that's—quite literally—just a drop in the bucket. — Ken Jennings, Condé Nast Traveler, "The Aral Sea Is Refilling for the First Time in Decades," 25 June 2018 Buy a bag of mixed rough stones at the Gift Shop and head for the sluice. — Courant Community, "Community News For The Wethersfield Edition," 10 Apr. 2018 Buy a bag of mixed rough stones at the Gift Shop and head for the sluice. — Courant Community, "Community News For The Wethersfield Edition," 10 Apr. 2018 Buy a bag of mixed rough stones at the Gift Shop and head for the sluice. — Courant Community, "Community News For The Wethersfield Edition," 10 Apr. 2018 Buy a bag of mixed rough stones at the Gift Shop and head for the sluice. — Courant Community, "Community News For The Wethersfield Edition," 10 Apr. 2018 Buy a bag of mixed rough stones at the Gift Shop and head for the sluice. — Courant Community, "Community News For The Wethersfield Edition," 10 Apr. 2018 Water poured into the Full Basin through sluice gates at high tide, and was let out of the Receiving Basin at low tide. — Courtney Humphries, BostonGlobe.com, "Boston vs. the rising tide," 28 Apr. 2018 Buy a bag of mixed rough stones at the Gift Shop and head for the sluice. — Courant Community, "Community News For The Wethersfield Edition," 10 Apr. 2018

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb

Main Street, also known as Frederick Road, was transformed into a waterway over the weekend, as brown water sluiced through town, destroying shops and upending cars. — Eliott C. Mclaughlin, CNN, "'It's even worse': Ellicott City, still recovering from 2016 flood, hammered again," 28 May 2018 This past year, wildfires and mudslides have ravaged California, and hurricanes have sluiced through Houston and Puerto Rico. — Rachel Riederer, The New Republic, "Can Rivers Be People Too?," 9 May 2018 The National Guard was activated and mandatory evacuations were under way Thursday on the Big Island of Hawaii as lava sluiced toward a community and menaced residents, authorities said. — Alex Johnson /, NBC News, "Volcanic eruption sparks mandatory evacuations on Hawaii's Big Island," 4 May 2018 For decades coal fired power plants disposed of this material by sluicing the ash and the residue collected in pollution control devices into unlined ash ponds on the banks of rivers. — Dennis Pillion, AL.com, "Alabama Power fined $1.25 million over coal ash ponds," 2 Mar. 2018 For decades, many of the waste products from burning coal for electricity were sluiced into wet ponds on-site at the power plants, with solid particles settling out into the ponds, but water from the ponds overflowing into the rivers. — Dennis Pillion, AL.com, "Alabama AG: Coal ash cleanup order violates states' rights," 7 Feb. 2018 Then there's the money sluicing in -- projected in short order to be $50 billion per annum. — Special To The Oregonian, OregonLive.com, "'Grass Roots' chronicles marijuana laws' disjointed history in the U.S.," 12 Dec. 2017 In public at least, the chief executives of China’s data oligopolies, including Alibaba and Tencent, are evangelists for the project that requires them to sluice gushers of consumer data to state superhubs. — Andrew Browne, WSJ, "China Uses ‘Digital Leninism’ to Manage Economy and Monitor Citizens," 17 Oct. 2017 Manafort and Gates are said to have controlled foreign accounts through which their Ukrainian political-consulting income sluiced, and to have failed to file accurate FBARs and tax returns. — Andrew C. Mccarthy, National Review, "The Manafort Indictment: Not Much There, and a Boon for Trump," 30 Oct. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sluice.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.