ˈflood-ˌgate, ˈfloodˌgate
1. sing. and pl. A gate or gates that may be opened or closed, to admit or exclude water, esp. the water of a flood; spec. the lower gates of a lock.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 167/2 Flodegate of a mylle, sino⁓glocitorium. 1519 Churchw. Acc. St. Giles, Reading 3 For a tent next the fflode gatis in the North side of the said mill lane. 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. 233 There are placed a great pair of Folding doors, or Flood-gates of Timber cross the river. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Basin of a dock, a place where the water is confined by double flood-gates. 1781 Chambers's Cycl. s.v. Lock or Weir, Lock is..a kind of canal inclosed between two gates; the upper called by workmen the sluice-gate, and the lower called the flood-gate. 1858 Lardner Hydrost. etc. iv. 66 The water in the higher level is confined by a floodgate. |
b. transf. and fig. chiefly in expressions relating to rain or tears.
| a 1225 Ancr. R. 72 Hwon ȝe nede moten speken a lute⁓wiht, leseð up ower muðes flodȝeten, ase me deð et ter mulne, and leted adun sone. 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI, 158 b, To set open the fludde gates of these devises, it was thought necessary, to cause some great comocion and rysyng of people. 1592 Shakes. Ven. & Ad. 959 Through the floud-gates breaks the siluer rain. 1607 Hieron Wks. I. 89 It setteth open the very floudgate of Gods wrath. a 1656 Bp. Hall Rem. Wks. (1660) 109 Let no Antinomian stop the floodgates of our eyes. 1663 Cowley Disc. O. Cromwell (1669) 67 It is God that breaks up the Flood-Gates of so general a Deluge. 1781 Cowper Convers. 264 When wine has..forced the flood-gates of licentious mirth! 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair xxvi, The floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept. |
2. a. A sluice. b. dial. (see quot. 1886).
| 1559 A. Andrison in W. Boys Sandwich (1792) 739 Wheales..for the drawenge up of the fludgates. 1870 Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. v. 3 It is idle to pull up the flood-gates of a dry brook, and then hope to see the wheel revolve. 1886 Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk., Flood-gate, a gate hung upon a pole across a stream, so that in flood-time it rises and falls by floating on the water. Its purpose is..to prevent cattle passing when the water is low. |
† 3. The stream that is closed by or passes through a flood-gate; a strong stream, a torrent. Also transf. and fig. Obs.
| 1388 Wyclif Job xxxvi. 27 Which..schedith out reynes at the licnesse of floodȝatis. 1533 Act 25 Hen. VIII, c. 7 Take..in fludgate, salmon-pipe, or at the tayle of any mylle or were..the young fry..of..salmon. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. i. 43 Of her gored wound..He..did the floudgate stop With his faire garment. 1651 C. Cartwright Cert. Relig. i. 22 My Lord, you let a flood-gate of Arguments out. |
b. attrib. passing into adj.
| 1604 Shakes. Oth. i. iii. 56 For my perticular griefe Is of so flood-gate, and ore-bearing Nature. |
4. Comb., as flood-gate iron (see quot. 1833).
| 1783 in Boswell Johnson (1848) 721/2 ‘Sir’, said he, ‘I am the great Twalmley, who invented the New Floodgate Iron’. 1833 J. Holland Manuf. Metal II. 253 The second [box-iron] is made hollow, for the reception of a heater; and with reference to the contrivance by which the heater is shut in, has been called the floodgate iron. |