From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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.
[1913 Webster]
2. Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows;
a source of supply.
[1913 Webster]
Each sluice of affluent fortune opened soon.
--Harte.
[1913 Webster]
This home familiarity . . . opens the sluices of
sensibility. --I. Taylor.
[1913 Webster]
3. The stream flowing through a flood gate.
[1913 Webster]
4. (Mining) A long box or trough through which water flows,
-- used for washing auriferous earth.
[1913 Webster]
Sluice gate, the sliding gate of a sluice.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Sluice \Sluice\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sluiced; p. pr. & vb. n.
Sluicing.]
1. To emit by, or as by, flood gates. [R.] --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
2. To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; as, to sluice
meadows. --Howitt.
[1913 Webster]
He dried his neck and face, which he had been
sluicing with cold water. --De Quincey.
[1913 Webster]
3. To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a
sluice; as, to sluice eart or gold dust in mining.
[1913 Webster]