Part 488

Longfellow.

4. Characteristic of a sluggard; dull; stupid; tame; simple. [R.] "So sluggish a conceit." Milton.

Syn. -- Inert; idle; lazy; slothful; indolent; dronish; slow; dull; drowsy; inactive. See Inert.

-- Slug"gish*ly, adv. -- Slug"gish*ness, n.

Slug"gy (?), a. Sluggish. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Slug"-horn` (?), a. An erroneous form of the Scotch word slughorne, or sloggorne, meaning slogan.

Slugs (?), n. pl. (Mining) Half-roasted ore.

Slug"worm` (?), n. (Zoöl.) Any caterpillar which has the general appearance of a slug, as do those of certain moths belonging to Limacodes and allied genera, and those of certain sawflies.

Sluice (?), n. [OF. escluse, F. écluse, 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.

2. Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.

Each sluice of affluent fortune opened soon.

Harte.

This home familiarity . . . opens the sluices of sensibility.

I. Taylor.

3. The stream flowing through a flood gate.

4. (Mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, -- used for washing auriferous earth.

Sluice gate, the sliding gate of a sluice.

Sluice, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sluiced (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Sluicing (?).] 1. To emit by, or as by, flood gates. [R.] Milton.

2. To wet copiously, as by opening a sluice; as, to sluice meadows. Howitt.

He dried his neck and face, which he had been sluicing with cold water.

De Quincey.

3. To wash with, or in, a stream of water running through a sluice; as, to sluice eart or gold dust in mining.

Sluice"way` (?), n. An artificial channel into which water is let by a sluice; specifically, a trough constructed over the bed of a stream, so that logs, lumber, or rubbish can be floated down to some convenient place of delivery.

Slui`cy (?), a. Falling copiously or in streams, as from a sluice.

And oft whole sheets descend of sluicy rain.

Dryden.

Slum (?), n. [CF. Slump, n.] 1. A foul back street of a city, especially one filled with a poor, dirty, degraded, and often vicious population; any low neighborhood or dark retreat; -- usually in the plural; as, Westminster slums are haunts for theives. Dickens.

2. pl. (Mining) Same as Slimes.