Sluices

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A structure designed to control water flow in channels or ditches, regulating levels and passage for irrigation or drainage purposes
2. A sliding gate or mechanism that directs water, often utilized in milling to drive equipment or transport materials efficiently
3. A system for managing the flow of liquids, frequently acting to guide and release water in a controlled manner

Etymology: Sluices are the plural of "sluice," and the singular has a surprisingly plain ancestry. It comes from Old French "escluse," meaning a barrier or dam, which descended from Late Latin "exclusa," the feminine past participle of "excludere," "to shut out." A sluice, in other words, is literally a thing that shuts water out or holds it back, and only later came to mean a gate that lets it through. That reversal is the heart of the word's history. The gate that blocks water and the gate that releases it are the same device, and English speakers kept the name whichever way the gate was swung. The meaning also spread from the gate itself to the channel it controlled, so a sluice came to mean the watercourse as well as the barrier across it.

Synonyms: gates, channels