sluice

American  

[sloos] / slus /

noun

1. an artificial channel for conducting water, often fitted with a gate sluice gate at the upper end for regulating the flow.

2. the body of water held back or controlled by a sluice gate.

3. any contrivance for regulating a flow from or into a receptacle.

4. a channel, especially one carrying off surplus water; drain.

5. a stream of surplus water.

6. an artificial stream or channel of water for moving solid matter.

   a lumbering sluice.

7. Also called sluice box.  Mining. a long, sloping trough or the like, with grooves on the bottom, into which water is directed to separate gold from gravel or sand.

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verb (used with object)

• sluices,
  present (3rd person singular)
• sluiced,
  past participle,  past
• sluicing
  present participle

1. to let out (water) by or as if by opening a sluice.

2. to drain (a pond, lake, etc.) by or as if by opening a sluice.

3. to open a sluice upon.

4. to flush or cleanse with a rush of water.

   to sluice the decks of a boat.

5. Mining. to wash in a sluice.

6. to send (logs) down a sluiceway.

verb (used without object)

• sluices,
  present (3rd person singular)
• sluiced,
  past participle,  past
• sluicing
  present participle

1. to flow or pour through or as if through a sluice.

sluice British  

/ sluːs /

noun

1. Also called: sluiceway.  a channel that carries a rapid current of water, esp one that has a sluicegate to control the flow

2. the body of water controlled by a sluicegate

3. See sluicegate

4. mining an inclined trough for washing ore, esp one having riffles on the bottom to trap particles

5. an artificial channel through which logs can be floated

6. informal a brief wash in running water

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verb

1. (tr) to draw out or drain (water, etc) from (a pond, etc) by means of a sluice

2. (tr) to wash or irrigate with a stream of water

3. (tr) mining to wash in a sluice

4. (tr) to send (logs, etc) down a sluice

5. (intr; often foll by away or out) (of water, etc) to run or flow from or as if from a sluice

6. (tr) to provide with a sluice

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• undersluice
  noun
• sluicelike
  adjective
• unsluiced
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• sluicing
  present
• sluiced
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• sluice
  simple
• sluices
  simple
• have sluiced
  perfect
• has sluiced
  perfect
• am sluicing
  progressive
• are sluicing
  progressive
• is sluicing
  progressive
• have been sluicing
  perfect progressive
• has been sluicing
  perfect progressive

Past

• sluiced
  simple
• had sluiced
  perfect
• was sluicing
  progressive
• were sluicing
  progressive
• had been sluicing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will sluice
  simple
• will have sluiced
  perfect
• will be sluicing
  progressive
• will have been sluicing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of sluice

1300–50; Middle English scluse (noun) < Old French escluse < Late Latin exclūsa, a water barrier, noun use of feminine of Latin exclūsus, past participle of exclūdere to exclude

Explanation

Anything that resembles a water slide with a gate is a sluice — a narrow channel that controls water flow. The word originally comes from an old English word meaning a narrow channel that controlled a flow of water, usually to a watermill, and it still has that meaning. A sluice can also mean a splash — often with cold water and usually done with some vigor. Torture victims in movies sometimes have their faces sluiced to bring them round for further questioning.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sluice sluices sluiced sluicing

People on social media brandish gold-flecked pans and nuggets while showing off their equipment, ranging from old-fashioned picks to gold-separating sluice boxes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2025

As the tide ebbs the water is released through a sluice, which pushes a water wheel, which turns the grinding stones.

From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2023

A combination of damaged sluice gates and high water might tear away a few gates, but would not be expected to rip apart so much of the dam, the professor said.

From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2023

Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 6, 2023

Then we slosh buckets of water across the floorboards, using push brooms to sluice the resulting muck from the car.

From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Sometimes they can be overgrown with vegetation or, in the case of drains and sluices, blocked.

From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2025

Postgraduate researcher David Vandercruyssen said: "High tides can be limited to existing levels simply by closing sluices and turbines and existing low tide levels can be maintained by pumping."

From Science Daily ● Jan. 13, 2024

The river sluices through a misty forest of lodgepole pines and Douglas firs, many skeletonized by wildfires, and starts into five miles of nearly continuous rapids.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 7, 2022

In response, officials undertook the Delta Works, a massive nationwide system of levees, sluices, dikes, dams and sea gates.

From New York Times ● Dec. 2, 2021

Outside in front of the station the stream roars alongside the street, it rushes foaming from the sluices of the mill bridge.

From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque

Everything still reeked of smoke, and when the first rains came, black water sluiced through the streets.

From Washington Post ● May 28, 2021

The storm surge then sluiced over the sides of the bay and rapidly inundated the area with water.

From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2018

Gaze into one facet, and you see nothing between downtown and the Ship Canal but asphalt and concrete; what used to be Queen Anne Hill has been sluiced away, filling much of Lake Union.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 7, 2018

If true, it would have largely defeated the purpose of requiring the keycard insertion—not to mention all those sluiced doors and biometrics and PIN codes—in the first place.

From Slate ● Dec. 21, 2016

Meltwater sluiced furiously down innumerable surface and subterranean channels, creating a ghostly harmonic rumble that resonated through the body of the glacier.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer

Dump trucks carried the soil to an immense sluicing operation, where water from two reservoirs washed away dirt to reveal gold nuggets.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2025

Fish and Wildlife Service, which otherwise protects the birds — the Corps in 2015 unleashed a concerted kill program on the cormorants to control predation on baby salmon sluicing downriver to the sea.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 21, 2024

Then came the Industrial Revolution, crunching and sluicing away, and changing pretty much everything: social structures, urban spaces, land use, belief systems, historical topography, not to mention the chemical properties of earth, water and air.

From New York Times ● Mar. 23, 2023

Thawing permafrost is undermining Indigenous villages, summer sea ice is vanishing, and water is sluicing off Greenland’s ice sheet in record amounts.

From Science Magazine ● Dec. 14, 2021

When it had finished its fussing, it seethed back down the New Meadows River, sluicing between the mainland and the islands.

From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt