Millgate

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A gate or sluice at a mill that regulates the flow of water to the mill wheel
2. The floodgate of a mill, which opens or closes to control how much water reaches the wheel
3. A barrier at a watermill that governs the water supply driving the machinery

Etymology: Millgate is a compound of "mill" and "gate", and its history is mostly that of its two parts. "Mill" comes from Old English "myln", borrowed very early from Latin "molina" (a mill, from "mola", millstone), so the word has been in English for more than a thousand years. "Gate" comes from Old English "geat", meaning an opening or passage, and only later came to mean a barrier that closes one. In the earliest sense of the compound, a millgate was the gateway or passage leading to a mill, and the word is recorded in English in this plain sense. Because "gate" once meant "way" or "road" as well as "door", the compound could mean a path or route as much as a physical gate. Names built this way are common in northern England, where street names such as "Millgate" mark the road that ran to a local mill. The word's sense therefore stayed close to its literal parts, with no major shift in meaning.