Other forms: sluices
A sluice is a gate that controls the flow of water. Open the sluice, a sluice gate, the sluice was raised.
It is how canals, mills and drainage systems are managed, and raising or lowering one changes the level upstream. As a verb, to sluice something is to wash it down with a rush of water, which is what happens when the gate is opened.
1nounsluiceA gate that controls the flow of water.
“The lock keeper opened the sluice to let the water out.”
sluice is a gate.
Old French escluse comes from Latin exclusa, a thing shut out, from excludere, to shut out.
Latin
exclusa — extrusion, gate
Anglo-Norman
escluse — sluice, floodgate
Middle English
sluse
English, today
sluice
Built from
From Middle English sluse, alteration of scluse, from Anglo-Norman escluse (“sluice, floodgate”), from Latin exclusa (“extrusion, gate”), from Latin exclūsus, form of exclūdō (“to shut out, to exclude”) (English exclude). Cognate to Dutch sluis.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA