Sluice \Sluice\, n. [OF. escluse, F. ['e]cluse, LL. exclusa, sclusa, from L. excludere, exclusum, to shut out: cf. D. sluis sluice, from the Old French. See {Exclude}.] 1. An artifical passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, as in a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow; also, a water gate or flood gate.
2. Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
Each sluice of affluent fortune opened soon. --Harte.
This home familiarity . . . opens the sluices of sensibility. --I. Taylor.
3. The stream flowing through a flood gate.
4. (Mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for washing auriferous earth.
{Sluice gate}, the sliding gate of a sluice.
Sluice \Sluice\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Sluiced}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Sluicing}.] 1. To emit by, or as by, flood gates. [R.] --Milton.
2. To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; as, to sluice meadows. --Howitt.
He dried his neck and face, which he had been sluicing with cold water. --De Quincey.
3. To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice; as, to sluice eart or gold dust in mining.
Even so, the most despised character in the Yukon isn't the faceless bureaucrat but the sluice thief.
Four years ago, Mr. Simpson, the miner from Tennessee, lost 65 ounces to a sluice thief.
They discuss everything from high-tech machines that re-sift old claims to techniques such as lining one's sluice with Astroturf to trap almost-invisible gold particles.
For the delays in building the new sluice, which was supposed to be completed in April, the Citizens' Committee is asking $1 million in compensation.