How to use sluice in a sentence

22 example sentences · noun, verb

Sluice means an artificial passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, for example in a canal lock or a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow. Example: “Another powerful argument that sluices are CPs comes from the positional distribution of sluiced wh-phrases in a variety of languages.”

Examples of sluice by meaning

nounAn instance of wh-stranding ellipsis, or sluicing.

Another powerful argument that sluices are CPs comes from the positional distribution of sluiced wh-phrases in a variety of languages.2001, Jason Merchant, “The Syntax of Sluicing”, in The Syntax of Silence, →DOI, page 45

verbTo wet copiously, as by opening a sluice.

His heart—how he got it pumping, sluicing its gates and chambers.1993, Paul Theroux, Millroy the Magician, page 61
Many years later, in 1953, Shostakovich summarized his dissatisfactions with the competition more bluntly: "Rimsky-Korsakov groomed, waved, and sluiced Musorgsky with eau de cologne.2000, Laurel E. Fay, chapter 7, in Shostakovich: A Life, Oxford University Press, page 120

verbTo wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice.

to sluice earth or gold dust in a sluice box in placer mining

verbTo wash (down or out).

And now men with a hose have come and are sluicing out the streets.1910, Lord Dunsany, “Bethmoora”, in A Dreamer's Tales, London: George Allen & Sons, page 68
He also organized a bucket brigade for sluicing down the decks.1977, Timothy Findley, The Wars, Penguin Canada, published 1985, page 60

verbTo flow, pour.

Out of sight of the houses he took off his clothes and let the rain sluice down on his bare body.1934, George Orwell, chapter 23, in Burmese Days
The huge things which had already careered into flight, they were enormous slothful sacks of billowing skin, and where the light sluiced over their bodies, they glimmered acid-blue and bronze.1986, Tanith Lee, Delirium's Mistress, New York: Daw Books, Book Two, Part Two, Chapter 6, p. 240

verbTo elide the complement in a coordinated wh-question. See sluicing.

In sum, then, it is possible to sluice over a correlate in a relative clause just in case the independent constraints regulating the distribution of (E-type) anaphora are met: again, we see that nothing particular to sluicing need be said.2001, Jason Merchant, “Deletio redux”, in The Syntax of Silence, →DOI, page 221

More sentences with sluice

The water is supplied to the dighis by the canal and each dighi has its own sluice gate.2021, Jew Das, Manish Kumar Goyal, N. V. Umamahesh, “Water Harvesting, Climate Change, and Variability”, in Saeid Eslamian, Faezeh [A.]…. From the entry dighi
Sluice valves, the medieval forerunner of stop valves, were installed and to avoid tampering were protected within brick housings called tamkins.2017, Julian McCarthy, Kingston upon Thames in 50 Buildings. From the entry tamkin
Golam Kibria was found floating through a sluice gate in a nearby sewer Monday morning, bringing the death toll to 74.2009 March 2, “After the Mutiny, Questions About Bangladesh's Army”, in Time. From the entry sluice gate
Cleaning the byre involved barrowing out the contents of the groop, sluicing it down and rebedding it with clean straw.2008, Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney, Stepping stones. From the entry groop
I must have opened up some sluice gate inside her and everything that had been dammed up came spilling out.1995, Gary Eberle, Angel Strings: A Novel, →ISBN, page 22. From the entry sluice gate
The sluices of the great dams were closed and the floodwater impounded and held there, to be let out slowly over the succeeding weeks.2000 February 15, United States Army Corps of Engineers, quoting William B. Newcomb, “Letter from Mr. William B. Newcomb to Mr. Tod D.…. From the entry river bottom
Between Peng-pu and Jen Ho Chih sluice gates were being installed at the mouths of the fish-bone tributaries, where they emptied into the Huai.1952, Wilfred G. Burchett, China's Feet Unbound, Melbourne, Australia: World Unity Publications, →OCLC, →OL, page 173. From the entry Peng-pu
But where in the darkness, in the bodily ravines of a human being, is this sluice that faithfully and miserlily preserves the last charge of life?2012, Andrey Platonov, translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler, Happy Moscow, London: Vintage Books, published 2013, →ISBN…. From the entry miserlily
People tear down trees to build their houses, and the melting snow water sluices down the mountainside, carrying occasional houses and blackclad robeclad Zen masters too.2010, Jason Murk, Mexican Song of Sunshine. From the entry blackclad
My proposed analysis, therefore, makes an interesting prediction in these cases, namely, that the prepositions which are not strandable under regular wh-movement become strandable under sluicing.2010, Yosuke Sato, “P-stranding under sluicing at the syntax–phonology interface”, in Minimalist Interfaces: Evidence from Indonesian and…. From the entry strandable
He knows the fortifications – crumbling – and beyond the city walls the lands of the Pale, its woods, villages and marshes, its sluices, dykes and canals.2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 402. From the entry pale
I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds.1962, Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, published 1963, →ISBN, page 33. From the entry gorgeosity
Moonlight caught the skullish face, became a hot flooding wax that pooled into gopher-hole eye sockets and flowed over bone and tooth, sluiced along jawline and spilled into cadaverous oblivion.2002, Cathy Buburuz, Side Show: Tales of the Big Top and the Bizarre, page 27. From the entry skullish

Meaning of sluice

noun An artificial passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, for example in a canal lock or a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow.
noun A water gate or floodgate.
noun Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.

Full definition of sluice

Questions about sluice in a sentence

How do you use sluice in a sentence?: Sluice is used as a noun and verb. For example: “Another powerful argument that sluices are CPs comes from the positional distribution of sluiced wh-phrases in a variety of languages.”
What is a short sentence with sluice?: “He also organized a bucket brigade for sluicing down the decks.”
What does sluice mean?: Sluice means an artificial passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, for example in a canal lock or a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow.

Adapted from Wiktionary: sluice (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use sluice in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/sluice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.