What does sluice mean?
Word: Sluice
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Sluice means a gate that slides up and down to control the flow of water in a canal or channel.
How do you spell sluice?
Syllables: sluice
Tricky part: The long oo sound is not spelt oo here. Two vowels, u and i, make it together, as in fruit.
Watch out for: sluce, slooce, slewce
Memory tip: Picture a boat of fruit drifting through the gate: fruit shares the vowel pair that makes the long oo.
Sluice in a sentence
Example 1: The engineer closed the sluice before the river rose any higher.
Example 2: At the old mill, a wooden sluice sent water towards the wheel.
Example 3: Every spring the villagers clear mud from the sluice near the pond.
Fun Fact
It reached English through Old French, from a Latin verb meaning to shut out. A closed one does exactly that to water.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell-o-Spell
One of these words is spelt right. Pick the meaning of that word.
1. embankmant 2. sluice 3. aquaduct 4. resevoir
a) a bridge built to carry water across a valley
b) a wall of earth that holds back a river
c) a large lake used to store a town's water
d) a movable barrier in a water channel
Show answer
d) a movable barrier in a water channel. The list spoils reservoir, aqueduct and embankment, each with a small slip.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the letters in the sentence to form a meaningful word:
Workers repaired the rusty ilecsu on the irrigation channel before the sowing season.
a) sluggish
b) sluice
c) slouch
d) sleuth
Show answer
b) sluice. Six letters including c, i and e, with no g, t, h or o.
Word Cookie
Find the extra letter in the word:
slluice
a) e
b) s
c) c
d) l
Show answer
d) l. One l is enough after the s, as in slide.
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to form a word:
_lui_e
a) s, c
b) c, c
c) s, s
d) s, z
Show answer
a) s, c. The word opens with the sound of slip and has a soft c near the end.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A farmer opens a sluice at dawn. What happens next?
a) Cattle start walking from shed to field
b) Seed starts dropping from drill to soil
c) Grain starts sliding from store to sack
d) Water starts moving from canal to field
Show answer
d) Water starts moving from canal to field
2. Which worker would deal with sluices most often?
a) someone who builds mobile towers
b) someone who manages canals and dams
c) someone who designs metro trains
d) someone who repairs lift motors
Show answer
b) someone who manages canals and dams
