This week’s theme
Double-duty words

This week’s words
stymie
sluice
chirk
skeeve
souse

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(sloos)

MEANING:

noun:	1. An artificial channel, stream, etc.
	2. A valve or gate to control the flow of a liquid.
	3. A body of water controlled by a sluice gate.
verb tr.:	1. To let out, by or as if by, opening a gate.
	2. To wash, flush, cleanse, etc.
	3. To send logs, gold-bearing gravel, or other material down a sluice.
verb intr.:	To flow, as if from or through a sluice.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French escluse (sluice gate), from Latin exclusa (water barrier), from excludere (to exclude), from ex- (out) + claudere (to close). Earliest documented use: noun: 1340, verb: 1593.

USAGE:

“She pulled her cell phone from her bag with trembling fingers and keyed in Angie’s number, her sluice of emotions obliterating her conviction.”
Tracey Richardson; Heartsick; Bella Books; 2017.

“I was not born to this
wariness. I came of age
as my kind do -- armed with ache
and swathed in rectitude,
a rough carving
sluiced under a torrent
of disregard.”
Rita Dove; Unaccompanied Anthem; Poetry (Chicago, Illinois); Apr 2023.

See more usage examples of sluice in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: