Definition of: sluice

(sls) noun
1. Any artificial channel for conducting water, or the stream so conducted; specifically, a body of water controlled by a floodgate.
2. A floodgate.
3. A flume.
4. Mining A board trough having at the bottom baffles holding quicksilver to separate gold from placer dirt carried through the trough by a current of water.
5. That through which anything issues or flows.
—v. sluiced, sluic·ing v.t.
1. To wet or drench, water or irrigate by or as by means of a sluice.
2. To wash in or by a sluice.
3. To draw out or conduct by or through a sluice.
4. To send (logs) down a sluiceway.
—v.i.
5. To flow out or issue from a sluice. [<OF escluse <L exclusa, pp. fem. of excludere shut out]