floodgate

From Middle English flodegate, flodgate, flodeyate, floodȝate, flodȝete, equivalent to flood +‎ gate.

• IPA^(key): /ˈflʌdˌɡeɪt/, /ˈflʌdɡeɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

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floodgate (plural floodgates)

1. An adjustable gate or valve used to control the flow of water through a sluice.
   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 31:

     At the start of the Second World War floodgates would be installed at the ends of the under-Thames sections of the Bakerloo and Northern lines to save them from inundation should bombs damage the riverbed.

2. (by extension) Anything that controls or limits an outpouring of people, emotion etc.
   • 1981 July 26, Sandra Salmans, “Will cable TV be invaded by commercials?”, in New York Times‎:

     “The floodgates for advertising on cable are down,” says Michael Dann, a leading consultant on cable television.

3. (obsolete) A stream that passes through a floodgate; a torrent.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 43, page 199:

     Out of her gored wound the cruell ſteel / He lightly ſnatcht, and did the floodgate ſtop / VVith his faire garment: then gan ſoftly feel her feeble pulſe, to proue if any drop / Of liuing blood yet in her veynes did hop

   • 1610, Daniell Price, The Defence of Truth Against a booke falsely called The Triumph of Truth sent over from Arras A.D. 1609 by Humfrey Leech late Minister. ‎, Oxford, Lib. 2 Cap. 3, page 237:

     The accuſation conſiſting of thoſe three articles, was moſt true: your doctrine was ſcādalous, it offred much offence, being generally diſtaſted; and was erroneous, being detected to be the floodgate of Traitors ſtaiers, looſing in ſome ſuppoſititious doctrines, and many blaſphemous arrogating much to man, derogating much from God.

• floodgate on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Category:Floodgates on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons